Primal: Seeing is believing
by Ophium
Summary: Purgatory changed Dean in more ways than he's aware of, in more ways than he is willing to admit even to himself. Working on a new case that takes them deep into the midst of a series of gruesome murders and an invisible killer, Dean struggles to come to terms with who he is while Sam does his best to figure out his brother's secrets. Set in season 8. Complete.
1. Prologue

-PROLOGUE-

When you are truly hungry, there are no words that can come close to do justice to the sweet, heavenly smell of food.

There was once a time, not that long ago, when he and his kin were so revered that food and gold were offered to them as a sign of respect and reverence. In exchange, those villages were spared from a fiery death.

But then rocks and arrows became powder and guns and humans started to think that they could fight back; they started to lose their respect.

And they forgot.

Now, he and his kind were the ones being hunted, a travesty of Nature, for they were the natural predators of humans. They were stronger, they were faster, they breathed fire and there was nothing that could kill them. And yet, somehow, he was the last of his kind.

The human that foolishly snuck into his nest smelled of sweat and blood. Delicious.

"_Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea_," the human sang off key. "_And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called._.. come to daddy, motherfucker and I'll puff you a new hole!"

"That doesn't rhyme," he said, coming out of the shadows. The man was tall and lean, a meager meal, sure, but an entertaining one. "I'd say you are lost, but you clearly seem to think you know what I am."

The man's lips curved in a slow smile. "Oh, I know exactly what you are."

There was no weapon in the man's hands. Good. He enjoyed playing with his food and guns made for such a noisy nuisance to the game. "And what am I?"

"An old, over-rated, very much dead, lizard."

He couldn't help but hiss at the demeaning insult.

The man's arm seemed to glow for a split of a second, attracting the dragon's attention to it. Had his eyes been human, he would've missed the moment when steal started to form above the man's arm, a long weapon taking shape where once there had been nothing but air.

A sword. But not one forged in the blood of his brothers, not one of the swords that he had learned to fear. Inconsequential.

"Time to show you mine," he said. With barely an effort, he let go of his constraining human appearance. Hands and feet turned into claws and lathery wings unfurled from his back; fire burned in his chest, begging to be released.

"Bring it on, Godzilla," the man challenged.

The dragon smiled and roared. Fools tasted better than virgins.

The air ignited between the two of them and the dragon watched in satisfaction as the man cowered away from the fire, finally understanding. He was already feeling the thrill of the chase when the man did the last thing that the dragon would've expected him to do.

The human charged.

The blade sliced through the dragon's chest, tearing scales and muscles in one go, its touch was like hot lava. For the first time, he experienced fear of the fire.

It was the last thing he felt.

:o:

Sam was lying over the hood of the Impala, hands laced behind his head, eyelids threatening to shut, when Dean finally came out.

His clothes and face were smudged black with soot and blood, hair singed at the edges and one of his eyebrows seemed darker than the other. He stunk of sulphur. The wide grin of white teeth in middle of all that was slightly disturbing.

"So," Sam said, sliding down the hood until his boots touched the ground. "It works on dragons too."

It was a statement, not a question. Had there been any doubts in his mind and Sam would have not stayed outside, no matter what Dean said.

Dean sobered up. "It works on dragons," he agreed, casting one last look at the sword before it merged back into a harmless tattoo on his forearm. "Doesn't mean it works on every single type of freak that's out there, Sam."

Sam fished a stolen motel towel from the trunk and tossed it to his brother with a grin. "It worked fine against demons, Leviathans, werewolves, black-dogs, shapeshifters and now dragons," he said, checking off monsters with his fingers. "I'm going with 'works on everything' until proven wrong."

"Famous last words, Sammy," a somewhat clean Dean said as he opened the driver's door. "Famous last words."


	2. Chapter 1

PART 1

Four people showing up dead in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana, all with their mouths sewed shut and their eyeballs missing, screamed serial killer to the untrained eye.

To Sam and Dean Winchester, however, all it possessed was the potential of yet another job. After all, it was New Orleans, a city with such a deep connection to the supernatural and spiritual worlds that serial killers actually ranked low on the list of weird stuff going on over there.

"The sewed mouths is kind of weird," Sam voiced, lap filled with printed photos, his hand holding the gory vision of a man with bloody eye sockets and a line of black thread crisscrossing his lips.

Dean tore his eyes from the road for a second because something like that really called for a stare. "Do you realize how many things are just _wrong_ with that sentence?"

Sam flipped him the bird, exchanging the gory picture for their father's journal. "A number of creatures have an attraction for eyes, not to mention the traditional connection between the eyes and the soul. There are also a number of rituals and spells that call for the use of eyes —"

"So, what you're saying," Dean cut in, "is that cutting out the eyes is perfectly normal." There was no hiding the gigantic smirk on his face.

Sam stared at him with a parental gaze. "You done?" he asked, waiting for the five year old in Dean to calm down. Dean seemed to think about it a moment; Sam shook his head in feigned annoyance. "And, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I mean, there are a number of ancient cultures that associated breath with being alive and believed that the mouth was an exit point for the soul when someone died. Maybe whatever is doing this is trying to trap the souls of its victims inside their bodies?"

Dean scratched his right arm without taking his hand off the wheel. "Why would any monster wanna do that? Most of them just want to chew on your soul, not save it for rainier days."

Sam spared a look to Dean's absent-minded scratching. Even through the two layers of clothing, he knew the cause of the irritation.

Even though they had tried and tested Dean's newfound... weapon on every sort of supernatural being that they could find, that was the extent of their dwellings on the matter. Dean refused flat out to even mention the tattoo and, unless they were actually in danger, the sword didn't come out to play on command, which would've helped Sam in his desire to study it.

Sam saw it as a tactical advantage for them; Dean saw it as a nuisance, something he couldn't control or send away.

The thing was – and Sam was pretty sure that- if he actually tried, Dean could probably control the tattoo.

It wasn't even a hunch. Sam knew from experience that the fear of being different was the main reason why his powers had escaped his control for so many years. And yet, whenever Dean was in danger, Sam had no problem pushing a cabinet away using nothing but his mind.

Sam had seen the same thing happening to Dean. It was Dean himself who refused to see it.

And if he knew his brother well, Sam knew that Dean would refuse to see anything but the case for now. Any conversation about Dean's _unique_ ability would have to wait for later…

"Shtrigas feed on the soul of children," Sam thought out loud. "Also succubus and incubus, they can feed on the soul of men and women. And we know the soul is an important piece in crossroads' demons and the spells they cast..."

"So," Dean cut in, "soul black market?"

Sam shrugged. It wasn't actually as far-fetched as it sounded.

:o:

Serendipity. The word ran over and over again on an endless loop in Dean's head as he drove them towards Louisiana. Because if a job hadn't come up in New Orleans, Dean would've had to make a pretty good excuse to head that way anyway.

It was all fine and dandy to know which brand of freaks the tattoo could kill, but Dean was desperate for some real answers. Problem was, there just weren't that many people in the world versed in his particular situation. Well, none that he'd trust, anyway. Witches were out of the question; Dean knew the masters they served and he had yet to find an honest demon. And the last honest-to-god psychic that he'd met had died because of them.

So Dean had called Benny.

The vampire he'd met in Purgatory had known about the woman by the mountain, the one who made special tattoos. The one who had made Dean's tattoo. He was the one person who could tell Dean more about her.

"I'm sorry man, but that's about all I know of her," the southern drawl that had become so familiar in Purgatory offered no help whatsoever. "She was just one of those things that you heard so much about that it's impossible to know what's real and what's not, you know what I mean?"

Dean's frustration over the phone had been so clear and vinegary that Benny had given him a name as a peace offering. Madame Blanch Lapin, a voodoo priestess just outside New Orleans.

According to him, she was the real thing. One foot in this world, one leg in the other. "One look at you, man," Benny had told him, "and she sees everything, right down to your soul."

Their clothes were sticking to their skin the second they got out of the car, even though the summer was mostly over. Dean pulled the edge of his shirt's collar, loosening his tie. The damn thing felt like a noose, cutting away his lungs from the hot air. "We're here for the Karl Hoffmann case," he announced to the clerk manning the front lobby at the coroner's office. In his hands, a brief flash of his fake FBI identification.

The old guard spared only a cursory glance at the two fast moving ID cards before waving them through; it was clear he hadn't noticed that the names on the cards read John Doe and Doe Johnson.

"Stairs are down the hall. It's the only door down there," the man said, making no effort to guide them in person. Too hot to move.

The cold air inside the refrigerated unit was only slightly fresher than outside, and Dean wasn't all that sure that was due to the two flights of stairs they had just descended, bring them down to a sort of natural cave, or the result of an actual working air conditioner.

Coming out of the somewhat dark staircase directly into an explosion of fluorescent lights was like being punch in the eyes by the sun. Dean tried to blink away the white spots and rainbow circles as he looked around the working space. The room was empty except for the one man standing on a metallic stool with his back to them, a line of thread in his hand. There was a red glow surrounding him, the light still playing tricks with Dean's eyes.

"That better be my iced tea, you prick. A guy can die of old age here waiting on your good for nothing, lazy ass—"

Dean coughed into his hand, cutting the man's angry tirade at root before he found the breath to go on. "Afternoon. I'm agent Doe," he said, then pointing to Sam, "and this is agent Johnson. We'd like to take a look at m—"

"The Hoffmann fella," the man finished. He dropped the needle and thread over the body he'd been working on and peeled his blue gloves off before getting down from the stool.

"That obvious?" Sam asked, more curious than suspicious.

"Dead folks with no eyeballs and mouths looking like something out of a horror movie? Not that difficult to guess a case like that would give you guys a hard-on. I'm Dr. Zimm, by the way."

Sam shook his hand, resisting the urge to bend down to reach him. Dr. Zimm was probably five feet tall with his hair standing on end.

Dean raised an eyebrow, offering his hand to the medical examiner as well. He was suddenly very glad to just be fake-FBI and not the real thing. The disdain the coroner seemed to feel towards the real G-men was like a living thing, sitting in the room, snapping its teeth at them. "You were here for all the bodies?"

"All but the first," he confirmed, sounding disappointed. "I was... on leave at the time. Pity too, because usually it's all gun accidents and heart defects."

Sam cleared his throat, pulling the conversation back to business. "What can you tell us about Mr. Hoffmann here?" he said, pointing to the corpse. The top half of his skull was missing and the large Y incision on his chest was only partly closed.

"He's dead," the man said, a smile dancing on his lips. When no one joined him in the over-used joke, he went on, looking surly. "The mutilations where done perimortem, the eyes severed neatly by the optic nerve just before the guy kicked it. The stitching of the mouth was done crudely but effectively, suggesting it was made by someone with some practice in the matter."

"What was the cause of death?" Dean asked, leaning over the body. There was something off about the man's chest, other than the large Y shape cut. It looked... flattened.

"As far as I can tell, asphyxiation. The lungs looked fine, but everything else was oxygen deprived. No ligature marks around the neck, no signs of obstruction in the upper respiratory system... he just stopped breathing. Same as the others."

"Anything else?" Sam asked, looking closely at the dead man's face. Mr. Hoffmann had a blondish mustache that fell partially over his mouth. There was some sort of light colored dust gathered in it. "Anything unusual?"

"Well, they all had various amounts of Zolpidem in their system."

"Zolpidem?" Sam asked.

"Ambien, it's a sleeping pill," Dean supplied before the Dr. Zimm could open his mouth. He poignantly ignored the surprised look Sam gave him before turning his attention back to the doctor. "So, you're saying that they were all doped by the killer?"

The medical examiner gave out a laugh. "Gods, no. With the trace amounts they had in their systems it would act so slowly that it would be completely ineffective as a subduing method. Like planting knives on the floor and wait for someone to fall on them," he said, his hands pointing to the floor like the knives were actually there. "No, all prior victims had been prescribed with it. I'm sure that after we check, we'll find that Mr. Hoffmann here was as well."

Sam exchanged a look with his brother. He needed a few seconds alone with the body.

Dean nodded. "No time like now time, wouldn't you say, doc?"

Zimm blinked. "S-sure. Why not?" he said, leading the way out of the room. "Thorough fellas, aren't you?"

"Only for the cases that give us a hard-on," Dean threw back, following the doctor to his office. "Let's find out if Mr. Hoffmann was on any happy pills."

Sam counted to three, just to make sure that his brother had the medical examiner properly distracted, before he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. Using one of the scalpels on the table, Sam shook loose some of the grains stuck to Mr. Hoffmann's facial hair and collected them on the paper. He was just folding it when he heard Dean's voice coming back.

"That was fast," he let out, a quick glance to let Dean know that it had been enough.

"Yeah, turns out the information was right there on the file," Dean said. "Mr. Hoffmann had been diagnosed with insomnia and was given Ambien just two weeks ago."

"You think that's relevant for the case?" Dr. Zimm asked.

"Just checking all possible leads," Sam cut in, extending his hand one more time. "Thank you for your help, sir."

:o:

"Strange little guy," Dean let out as soon as they were seated in the car. "But I guess working day in and day out with dead people will do that to y—"

"Sleeping pills?" Sam asked as he turned in his seat to face his brother. "How long have you been taking them?"

Dean stopped, his fingers still curled around the key even though the engine was still dead. He could deny it, Dean was aware of that. Could tell Sam he'd heard about them somewhere, that he knew some guy who took them. Then again, it was _only_ sleeping pills. He'd self 'medicated' with worse. "They help me sleep, that's all," Dean answered curtly, turning the key and letting the Impala fill the silence.

If there was one thing that Hell had taught Dean it was that he wasn't invincible. Back then, all he had wanted to do was sleep, even though the knowledge of the kind of dreams sleep would bring had made him terrified of closing his eyes.

There was only so long that he could go on without sleep altogether; it got to a point where even awake, the nightmares would still come. So, Dean had caved in and started taking some pills to make the nightmares stop.

And then Purgatory happened.

One year without needing to sleep did weird things to a person's sleeping patterns and the second time around Dean had decided that he wouldn't wait until he crashed and burned to do something about it. The pills helped, gave him a full night's sleep whenever they had the time to get one. And sometimes... sometimes they even stopped the dreams from coming.

Sam, apparently prepared for a whole week's worth of denials and dancing around the matter, seemed stunned into silence by his brother's open confession.

Dean smiled and stepped on the gas. If he'd known that honesty was so effective in shutting up his baby brother, he would've used it sooner. "So, what did you want with the dead guy's corpse?" he asked as he eased the car onto the main road.

"This," Sam said, pulling out a folded piece of paper from his coat. "This stuff was all over the guy's mustache."

Dean stole a look from the road to peak at the grainy residue on the piece of paper. His nose curled in disgust. "What is that? Dandruff?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't think so." Gently tilting the paper, he watched as the tiny grains moved freely from one side to the other, a soft scrapping sound barely audible over the noise of tires on asphalt. "I think its sand."

:o:

The wallpaper in the motel room had a jungle motif, a mesh of gigantic green leaves and exotic animals like monkeys and parrots. Near the floor, there were beetles and ants and spiders. The more Dean stared at the brown beetle on the wallpaper near the bathroom door, the more he was sure that the bug wasn't a part of the decoration. Or that it was a beetle at all.

"We should split up tomorrow," Dean suggested, dragging his eyes away from the beetle-that-was-probably-a-cockroach and scratching his arm. "Two of the victims' relatives live in the French Quarter, but the other two are from out of town."

Dean's voice was casual, almost bored, but he was holding is breath, waiting for Sam's answer. It was hardly the first time they divided their resources in order to cover more ground, but this time, Dean's strategy had ulterior motives.

Sam lifted his eyes from the police reports printouts on the table like he was pulling weights with his eyelids. Hacking into the police department server had been depressingly easy but the amount of information they'd been able to gather on all of the murders had not been worth it. There was such thing as over-investigating, it would seem. "Yeah, sure," he agreed absent mind, returning his attention to the stack of papers. "Except for the first victim, Brian Faerydae, there is no mention of sand in the reports," he blurted out after a beat. "He had sand under his fingernails, a specific kind of sand that can only be found in Greece. But there's nothing on any of the other victims' coroner reports about any type of sand or dirt deposits."

"Maybe because there weren't any? Two victims don't make a pattern, just a coincidence," Dean pointed out, his mind already planning the best rout for the following day. If he played it right, he would have time to visit the two victims' families and still pay a visit to Madame Lapin without Sam noticing anything.

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Since when do we believe in coincidences?"

"Good point," Dean agreed, getting up from the bed and picking up one of the case files. "The thing is, nothing about these murders screams any particular type of monster to me. In fact, if it weren't for a gut feeling, I would even say this was done by some psycho freak of the human monster variety."

"There's the lack of bruising," Sam pointed out, handing a report to Dean. "See there? Like Dr. Zimm said, they all died of asphyxiation, but there's no evidence as to how it happened. No bruising, no ligature marks, no sign of hemorrhage, nothing."

Dean dropped the file and made a grab for their father's journal. "The guy's chest was caved in, did you notice?" he asked, sensing Sam's nod more than seeing it. His eyes were focused on the numerous scribblings of his father. "Shouldn't something like that leave a massive bruise? I mean, I know I bruise like a little shit whenever I crack a rib, so something like that—"

"Should leave the guy all black and blue," Sam agreed.

"I know I read something about..." Dean muttered, flipping pages that he already knew by heart. "Ah! Here it is!"

"What?" Sam asked, not waiting for an answer as he rose to read over his brother's shoulder. "A hag? You think these guys were killed by a hag?"

"Makes sense, no? People killed in their sleep, signs of something sitting on their frigging chests..."

Sam nodded, even though he didn't look convinced. "What about the eyes? What about the mouths?"

Dean opened his mouth to offer a prompt reply but nothing came to mind. He scratched his right arm, thinking. Hags were pretty straightforward monsters, the ugly step-grandmothers of the likes of succubus and incubus. Other than having their fun sitting on top of people while they slept to give them nightmares, they weren't known to get creative with their victims. "Yeah... I got nothing."

"Stop scratching," Sam warned, his eyes pinning his brother for a second before returning to the paper he was reading.

Dean followed Sam's gaze, only to find himself touching the tattoo again.

"Is that getting infected or something?" Sam asked. "You keep going at it."

Dean made a conscious effort to stop touching it. It wasn't itching, not really, not in the sense that a rash itches. It was more like…

"I need some air," Dean blurted out as he made his way to the door, not turning around to meet Sam's dumbfound look.

It wasn't that he was trying to avoid Sam's questions; it was just that Dean didn't really have an answer to them.

Ever since he had figured out that there was more to the sword tattoo he'd carried with him from Purgatory than a harmless inked design, Dean had been feeling more and more eager to use it.

During the time they've spent searching for supernatural creatures to test the sword on, Dean had felt fine. To be honest with himself, he had felt more than fine, almost giddy, an intoxicating excitement that felt hard to come down from every time it was over. Like an addition, it felt better and better the more he used it.

The tattoo was itching, that was for sure, but it was itching to be let out, to be put to use. It was itching for blood.

Dean didn't take the car. He needed to let out some steam and the best way to do it was to walk. Instead of going down the busier streets of New Orleans, however, Dean found himself choosing narrow side streets and alleys, going deeper and deeper into the gut of the city.

He found what he was looking for in the back alley of a bar that had seen past its prime and had kept on going. The neon sign above the door was half lit and a wall of drunks that seemed permanently attached to the place, barred the door.

Whenever there was movement through the door, the fetid smell of old grease and fresh vomit would spill out, like it too was trying to escape the place.

The kid didn't look like he was old enough to drink, but that had never stopped any teen from doing it anyway. Dean knew that from personal experience.

He also knew from personal experience that alcohol and hormones made for the worst possible mix in regard to common sense. The guys beating up the kid, however, looked old enough to know better.

Dean smiled. Knocking some sense into a couple of old farts. Just what the doctor had ordered.

The sound of the sharp and short whistle that escaped from between Dean's two fingers bounced all over the dark walls of the alley. It was loud enough to cut through the sound of fists hitting flesh and the kid's pained moans.

One of the boy's attackers, a shiny leather jacket that screamed of fake and cheap, looked up. His fist paused in the air. "Walk away, prick. This ain't none of your business."

"Yeah," the other one chimed in, his voice deep and nasal. "Scramble off before we decide you need some manners too, you skinny little cunt."

Objects may look smaller in the distance. The same was true for pissed off hunters.

Dean took one step forward, knowing that his actions would bring him from the dark into the light of the single lamp in the alley. There was a slight sense of pleasure as he caught the moment in the older guys' eyes when they began to realize that maybe they had bitten off more than they could chew.

Living the life they did, neither he nor Sam had ever been prone to extra fat once their father had started training them; before that, however, there had been a time when Dean had been skinny. Genetics, plus long limbs and spotty meals when John was away had conspired to make Dean look like an underfed, skinny kid until he had started filling up with muscle by his late teens.

Little, however, was something that simply didn't run in the male side of the Winchester family.

The kid, realizing that the guys' attention was somewhere else, didn't waste his opportunity. Dean registered the sound of sneakers hitting the ground in a rapid cadence worthy of a professional runner as he scooted away.

"Looks like a spot just opened in your schedule," Dean said, taking another step forward. "Come and teach me how a real lady behaves, douchebag."

The two guys stepped closer to Dean. The feeling of his heart pumping faster, blood rushing and senses growing sharper with the slow build of adrenaline was... intoxicating.

Dean charged forward, his only fear being that the two guys might turn tail and run before he had a chance to reach them.

Luckily for him, they were too dumb or too drunk to cut their loses and run anyway. The big one, the one in the plastic leather, took the first swing at Dean. It was meant to hit him in the face, but all it hit was the air at the tip of Dean's nose as he dodged back and turned right to land a solid blow to the guy's gut, ending with a sharp elbow to the his spine as he bent over in pain.

Bile and spit flew, hitting the ground seconds before the first guy lost his battle with gravity; Dean's focus, however, was already on to nasal-voice guy. Slightly smarter, and having seen the way Dean had moved against his pal, the man decided to skip the fist fight and go straight for the short knife in his pocket.

Dean's smile widened, a maniacal grin that had scared far more powerful enemies than a couple of bar flies. Finally, a challenge.

The guy slashed low, aiming for Dean's groin. The hunter easily sidestepped him, making nasal-voice lose his balance and lean forward. Dean delivered a heavy blow to the back of the guy's neck that was just enough to leave him numb from the neck down without breaking his spine. The useless knife clattered to the ground and Dean kicked it aside.

He hadn't even broken a sweat.

A side door opened, rusty hinges announcing every inch of movement. The guy stepping from behind it had a dirty apron around his middle and was as big as a buffalo. "What t'hell's taking so damn long, Phil?"

It took the new arrival less than two seconds to picture what had happened and less than that to decide that the stranger who had beaten up his friends and left them moaning on the ground was going to pay for that.

The gun came out of nowhere but, somehow, Dean knew the big guy was going to take a shot at him even before he'd seen the weapon. There was no time to run; no place to hide in that naked alley.

Everything grayed out from Dean's vision. He didn't felt the pain in his arm as the gun discharged once; he had no memory of having moved.

All Dean knew was that one second he was a sitting duck, completely exposed where he stood in the middle of the street, waiting to be gunned down and the next...

Dean sat back, his eyes locking with the terrified gaze from the man underneath him. He was still holding on to his gun, but thoughts of firing it a second time had fled his mind. A sword, -the sword- that Dean had been trying so hard to forget and ignore, was hovering inches from the guy's face on the floor. One slight move and the sharp blade would tear into his carotid artery.

"P-pp-please don't hurt me," the guy begged. "I have a family... wife... kids... please."

Dean saw his reflection in the man's eyes and backed away, disgusted. All he could see was a monster.

:o:

"What the hell happened to you?"

Dean had tried to be quiet, sneaking back into their motel room and into the bathroom without waking Sam. He had failed.

The overhead bright light that Sam flicked opened made the bloody gash in Dean's arm look worse than it actually was. "I cut myself shaving," Dean offered, dry tone as he avoided Sam's eyes in the mirror and went on trying to sow the wound shut.

"Fine, be an ass," Sam offered in return, bullying his way inside the tiny bathroom and prying the needle from Dean's hands. "Should I go out looking for dead bodies to hide?"

Sam was furious. Dean could tell that even without all the piss and vinegar in his words. He rested his weight against the sink, looking down at the blood on his hands. Most of it was his and for that Dean was grateful.

Tonight, he could've killed an innocent man. Tonight, he _had_ almost killed an innocent man.

Suddenly, those blood-covered hands were shaking and the world was losing color around him. At a distance, Dean could hear Sam calling out his name, even if the word held no meaning and the sound was nothing more than wind rustling through dry leaves inside his ears.

The cold, solid floor pulled Dean back to reality as it collided with his butt. "Fuck." It was whispered as a lament, as a confession of how messed up he felt. "What the hell—?"

Sam's face was in front of him, boiling fury replaced by soothing concern, sharp needle replaced by soft words. "Deep breathes, Dean," he said, over and over again, like those words had been his mantra for the past minutes. "Deep breathes, nice and slow."

Dean pushed his brother away. Sam's calming words, like he was trying to appease a skittish colt, brought home the bitter reality of what had just happened. He'd lost it.

A panic attack.

Dean Win-fucking-chester, demon slayer, had just had a panic attack.

:o:

For a moment, Dean felt like he was back in Purgatory, entering the cave again, Benny at his side, their clothes covered in the blood of the enemies they'd fought and killed to get there.

Madame Lapin didn't live in a cave, but the inside of her house possessed the same gravity to it, like the weight a mountain was pressing down on it, eager to flatten it to the ground.

True power gave off the same kind of energy, like the world was a little tighter, a little thicker around certain people. Madame Lapin had yet to make an appearance, and yet Dean already knew she was the real thing.

"You can feel it." The voice was sweet and tender, a touch of smoke and whiskey making it sound like an old friend. "As I can feel you, Dean Winchester."

Dean took a step back, watching the corners for signs of betrayal. It was never good when a complete stranger knew who he was.

The woman that walked down the main stairs was a little bit older than him, hair decorated with glinting metal beads and a long, tight fitting dress the exact same color of her dark skin, making it appear as if she was wearing nothing at all.

Dean tried to keep track of her steps, watching her every move with the alertness of a starved man looking at his meal. He found that it was impossible.

Light seemed to flicker off her, shimmering and pulling the woman out of focus, like a broken record skipping notes.

"Relax, Dean," she beckoned him. The gentleness of her voice urged him to do just that, despite Dean's best intentions. "I don't bite."

The tone of her words made Dean's eyes snap open. He hadn't even seen her move, and yet the woman was standing right in front of him, grotesquely long teeth mutating her smile into an ugly snarl.

"Benny told me all about you," she whispered sweetly, before lunging for his neck, sharp teeth sinking into his blood like knives—

"Argh!"

Dean jumped upright in his bed, his hand flying to his neck to stem the gush of blood he was sure to be pouring out. Feeling nothing but clammy skin against his fingertips, Dean pulled his hand away slowly. Nothing.

"Mornin'."

Although Sam's greeting was casual, Dean could tell by his brother's furrowed brow that his mood was far from it. He was watching Dean's every twitch of muscle, every blink of the eyes. "Stop that," Dean said, striking before Sam could open his mouth a second time. Annoyed at Sam's watchfulness, he threw the bed sheet aside with enough force to tear it; it felt like ants crawling over his skin.

Sam gave him a studied clueless look. "Stop what? Talking to you in the morning?"

Dean got up, feet stomping like a cranky kid, making his way to the bathroom.

"Stop seeing what's right in front of me?"

The bathroom door banged with a finality that should've stopped Sam. "Stop knowing that you're not okay?" he added to himself as the sound of a running shower filled the small room.

Inside the stained shower stall, Dean leaned his head against the cracked tiles, allowing the lukewarm water to hit his shoulders and wash away the dampness left behind by the nightmare.

He banged his head against the tile, hoping that brute force alone could fix whatever was messing with his head.

The image of the woman in his dream kept coming back to him, the gentleness of her voice clashing against the danger of her bite. He was pretty sure he had never seen her before, and yet he knew that she was the woman Benny had told him to seek. How was that even possible?

Adding his reaction to that weird dream to the... event of the previous night, Dean couldn't really claim to be surprised at Sam's close watch. Expecting it and liking it, however, were too very different beasts.

Dean clasped his left hand around the design that covered his right forearm. Without the sword trying to claw its way out, the tattoo looked harmless, almost beautiful.

Dean hated it.

Sulking inside the shower stall, however, would accomplish nothing other than turning him into a prune. Quickly toweling off, Dean slipped into the same clothes and exited the bathroom with the resolute gait of man who knew exactly what he was doing.

"I'll take the out of town families, you handle the ones in the French Quarter," Dean reminded Sam as he picked up the car keys. "Meet you here for dinner."

The door banged behind him without room for Sam's reaction.

:o:

Left alone to fume, Sam dressed as fast as he could, cursing his brother every step of the way. Jamming his arms angrily into the first shirt he could reach, the material ripped right under his hands causing him to froze. "Dammit."

When he grabbed another and the same thing happened, Sam was sure it was because he was pissed at himself for ruining the first one. Took him almost a third mangled shirt before he realized that the shirts he was trying to wear were Dean's.

That gave him a small degree of satisfaction as he tossed them back inside Dean's duffel. Dean could sew his own maimed shirts, if he wanted to wear them ever again.

Once dressed, Sam looked at his reflection in the mirror. Sometimes, he had no idea how they actually managed to fool anyone into thinking that they were real FBI agents... or any kind of law enforcement officer, for that matter. Shaking his head, Sam picked up the mound of files Dean had left for him on the table. He'd have to walk, which suited his mood just fine.

Sam's head was swirling with conflicting thoughts and unanswered questions. He could easily recognize a bullet wound when he saw one; more specifically, he knew how to recognize a bullet wound when he saw one in Dean's body.

Oddly enough, it wasn't even the fact that his brother had gone out for some air the previous night and had come back looking like he'd gone into war that had set off all of the alarms in Sam's mind; it was the fact that, whatever had happened, it had caused Dean to zone out on him and go into a full panic attack as Sam watched.

Sam had no idea what had driven Dean out the previous night, no inkling of what had happened to him while he was out and no fucking clue whatsoever as to what was wrong with him. It was almost as if there were two versions of Dean's life happening at the same time and Sam was only privy to one of them. He hated that.

Part of it he could guess, of course. After all, ever since he had discovered that Dean had somehow acquired a magic tattoo while in Purgatory and that it could somehow turn into a weapon, one that he could barely control, Sam had been waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Dean didn't do well when the supernatural found its way under his skin, literally in this case.

Sam had hoped that his brother would open up and let someone help him. The idea was, of course, utopian and gave Sam the giggles even as he thought it. It would be easier to teach a purple shark to tap dance.

Setting aside, for the moment, any attempt to figure out what the hell had crawled up Dean's ass, Sam focused instead on the case at hand. Not that it made much more sense than his brother.

Some days, Sam really hated his life.

:o:

The lingering effects of the dream this morning had left a bad aftertaste in Dean's mouth, to the point that he decided to start by handling the victims' families and save his side tour visit to the end.

Mrs. Figgs' place had a nice view to Lake Borgne, the wind carrying with it a gentle ocean breeze that smelt of sun and salt. Dean's thoughts, however, seemed to have a mind of their own and even as he rang the bell on the Figgs' house, he half expected to see Madame Lapin answer the door. The fact that he had never met the woman and yet knew exactly how she looked, only served to piss Dean further.

He had to fight a visible sigh of relief when the woman who opened the door looked nothing like her. She seemed surrounded by an amber glow that softened the edges of her figure and, while the full head of white hair advertised her advanced age, her posture, coupled with a lively spark in her eyes, spoke of a youthful, playful soul. "Mrs. Figgs?"

"Whatever you're selling, son, I neither need it nor want it. You're a big man, you can pick which one yourself," she said after one glance in his direction, hand poised to close the door in his face.

Dean's brow furrowed, his eyes following the woman's gaze. Did he look like a salesman? "Not a salesman, lady."

She eyed him sharply. "You're too old for a boy scout and too pretty for the sort of rent boy I can afford. But if I'm wrong on either guess, please, lets see them cookies and I'll take a bite."

Dean shook his head, struggling to hide a smile. "I'm here to talk to you about your sister's death," he said, showing his fake badge to the sharp-tongued woman.

Her countenance changed like someone had flipped a switch, turning joviality and sharpness into a dull version that seemed to fit her age better. "I already heard all I cared to hear about how Martha died of 'natural causes' and of the corpse desecration. I think it's all a big pile of bullshit, and nothing you say will make me chan—"

"I agree with you," Dean answered honestly.

It was like he had screamed 'open sesame' to the side of a mountain. Next thing he knew, he was sitting in the old woman's living room with a coffee in his hands and a pile of homemade oatmeal and raisins cookies within his reach.

"Tell me about your sister," Dean prompted, his eyes perusing the photos on the mantle. Apart from an old black and white picture of a couple, almost all the others were of the same two women in various places and times. In the more recent ones, he could even recognize the woman sitting in front of him. "Were you two close, Mrs. Figgs?"

The woman followed his gaze, a gentle smile caressing her lips and giving him a glimpse of the beauty she'd once been. "Please, call me Jocelyn. Will, my late husband, used to calls us a package deal," she started. "We never lived that far apart from one another, but when Will passed away, I just asked her to move in with me, keep me company in my old age. I guess I lost that too now, haven't I?"

Dean kept silent for a bit, knowing that any word from him at that point would only break the barely contained emotions that the older woman was struggling to keep in check. "Can you think of anyone who'd want to harm your sister?"

"What do you want me to say?" the old lady said, the exhaustion in her voice telling of a question answered too many times. "Was she a person who took risks? No. Martha wouldn't even jaywalk in a deserted street. Did Martha have any enemies? Other than those she inherited from working as a secretary to Mr. Dodson, who owns the car dealership down the street, no, she had none. And like I told the police, the man is a prick, but not a killer."

Dean set his empty cup down. "Why is he a prick?"

"Martha never wanted a car of her own, said she had no use for it in her personal life. Working for Dodson, however, meant that she spent her days running errands for the bastard all across town and surrounding cities. She wasn't going to buy a car just because of work, so she took the bus instead. He owns a damn car dealership and my sister had to take a bus to go pick up his stinking laundry. It nearly got her killed."

Dean blinked. He wasn't sure which was more unlikely to get someone killed. Ridding the bus or dirty laundry. Both, he supposed. "I'm sorry... what?"

"Martha almost died last year. The bus she was in rammed a car in an intersection just outside of town, then rolled down a hill," Jocelyn explained. "A horrible thing, that was. It was a miracle the only one who died was the poor woman driving the car."

Dean nodded, even though that kind of story wasn't what he'd hoped to hear. "And after the accident," he pressed on, "or more recently, did you noticed any change in your sister's behavior, any mood swings, odd habits?"

"Menopause didn't kill my sister, agent," she countered bitterly. "She was having some trouble sleeping and her hip had started to bother her, but Martha did not die of any natural disease, she was healthy as a horse. Whatever caused her to lose her eyes and... and... all the other horrible things that were done to her," the woman stopped, her fingers trembling as she pressed them against her lips, trying to physically stop the deluge of words. "They say she died because her lungs stopped, but I don't believe that. I thought you didn't either."

Dean swallowed. Most of the time, he tried his best to keep the things that go bump in the night from ordinary people. Most of the times, he had an easy time doing so; most of the ordinary people don't want to hear about ghosts and demons and werewolves. Most people would prefer to believe in aliens rather than things that were older than Earth itself.

Some other times, as now, Dean couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Like I said, Jocelyn, I don't think your sister died of any lung disease," he confessed, pausing to choose his words carefully. "Truth is, at this point, I have no idea what killed your sister," he went on, registering the disappointment in her face with a pang in his heart. "But I can promise you that I will do everything in my power to find whatever was responsible for it."

The woman's eyebrow rose ever so slightly and Dean knew that she had caught his subtle hint. He waited for the inevitable questions over the meaning of a 'whatever' rather than a 'whoever', he waited for her eyes to glaze over as Mrs. Figgs deemed him a lunatic and kicked him out of her house.

None of that happened, though.

Instead, Mrs. Figgs nodded, her eyes quietly resting over his in a solemn promise of holding him to his word and trusting him to keep it, whether the one responsible for taking her sister was from this world or the next.

His heart clenched deep within his chest as Dean suddenly realized why he had taken such an instant liking to this complete stranger, why he had felt so close to her despite her sharp tongue and edgy humor. She reminded him of Ellen.

Had the Harvelle woman lived to reach an old age, Dean supposed she would be exactly like Mrs. Figgs, vibrant and refusing to conform to conventional stereotypes.

He got up from the soft couch with a sad smile in his face, his hand extended, a small white card with his number printed in black. "Thank you for help, Jocelyn. I'll be in touch."

The old woman rose as well, taking the card she walked him to the door. "I'll hold to that, young man," she said good-naturally, reading the card over. "And please, call me Jo. Most people do."

Dean chuckled, knowing that the woman would surely find him insane at last. The name, however, was too perfect for her. Jo indeed.

He left with a hand wave, fond memories of the Harvelle women in his mind.

:o:

Sam figured the best place to start was with the family of the last victim, Karl Hoffman. Besides, the Hoffmans lived only a couple of streets away from the motel where he and Dean were staying.

The woman that answered the door had red-rimmed eyes and a mop of hair that hadn't seen a brush in days. "Mrs. Hoffmann?" Sam ventured.

At the woman's nod, he fished out his ID. "I'm agent Johnson. Mind if I come in?"

Sam would say that Mrs. Hoffmann moved like a zombie, but he had faced zombies before. They moved much faster and lively than the person in front of him now.

He could barely recall the days after Bobby's death, but Sam imagined that he and Dean had looked not so different from the grieving woman. The shock of losing a loved one so suddenly and so brutally could send the senses into overload, shut down feelings completely. A defense mechanism, he figured.

It also meant that Mrs. Hoffmann wasn't going to be of much help to them.

"Mrs. Hoffmann, I'm really sorry to disturb you at this time, but there are a few things that need clarification in your husband's case, and if we are to find those responsible for the m-" Sam stopped short of saying mutilations. There was no point in reminding the poor woman of that. "Tell me about the last time you saw him. Did he seem worried, afraid, acting out of the ordinary?"

The woman blinked, appearing momentarily confused as to why there was a stranger sitting in her coach. Her eyes filled with fresh tears, falling silently and unnoticed, like they'd become an ordinary thing.

"We went to bed late. Karl was having one of his bouts of insomnia from the accident and I..."

"Accident?" Sam prodded.

"Car crash, last year. My Karl was in a bus accident, came out of it with just some bruises, but scared out of his wits from what had happened," she said, hands twisting in her lap. "It was a very close call and I was so thankful back then to have him home, safe and sound and now..."

"So, he had trouble sleeping?"

Mrs. Hoffmann nodded. "I ended up staying with him, that last night, watching a movie..."

She paused again, looking so lost and pained that Sam actually reached forward, afraid that she was going to keel over. "Mrs. Hoffmann?"

The woman pressed a hand to her chest, the look of confusion not leaving her face. "The movie... I can't remember which movie it was."

Sam breath caught in his chest. The pain of losing Jess seemed like a lifetime ago, but he could still remember the desperate need to remember every single detail of their life together; he could still remember the panic he had felt when he forgot what Jess' hair used to smell like.

"It will come to you," he offered reassuringly. He paused long enough for the widow to settle some before pressing the matter once more. "And after going to bed. Did you hear anything, feel anyone in the house?"

Mrs. Hoffmann shook her head. "I... nothing," she said, a barely contained sob constraining her throat. "I was lying right next to Karl and I didn't even wake as someone did... did all those awful things to him!"

The precarious hold the woman had been keeping on her emotions was only obvious as she let go of all restraints and started wailing in front of Sam.

He felt like an ass, knowing he had pushed the poor woman over the edge, no matter how gentle his questioning had been, and knowing that there was nothing he could do for her except finding the thing that had killed her husband.

Feeling helpless, Sam's eyes darted around the room; he was trying to decide whether he should attempt to comfort her or get up to find a family member who could, when a man's voice saved him the decision.

"What the hell are you doing to my mother?"

Sam got to his feet slowly. People tended to get jumpy when they realized just how big he was and the guy's mother crumpled on the couch, her face washed in tears, wasn't going to help his case of innocence.

When he realized that the kid –because despite the strong, deep voice, the guy in front of him couldn't be more than seventeen- wasn't holding any sort of weapon, Sam reached into his pocket and showed his fake ID once more.

The kid gave him the stinky-eye anyway, as he made his way over to consol his crying mother. "I think you should leave now, _agent_," he said, managing to make the last word sound like a cuss.

Sam nodded; he couldn't agree more. "Just one more thing," he ventured. From the looks the kid and his mother were giving him, Sam figured 'one' was really all he was going to get. "Did Mr. Hoffmann go to the beach in the days prior to his death? Or maybe visit a construction site?"

The twin looks of confusion were answer enough for the hunter.

"My dad hated the sea and he worked as a desk clerk for a law firm so, no, I don't think my father was at the beach in the middle of his work week. Close the door on your way out, will you?"

Sam did just that.

:o:

There was no one home at the Faerydaes' place. Which meant that Dean had wasted a huge chunk of his rapidly diminishing day on a wild goose chase.

The next-door neighbor, eager to be of assistance and who seemed to know an uncanny amount of information on the Faerydaes', had assured Dean that they still lived there but had been out all week, visiting family. They'd be back the following day.

Which meant that Dean couldn't delay his visit to Madame Lapin any more.

Truthfully, he could just turn around and forget Benny's advice about consulting the woman altogether. There had to be other ways to find out what had been done to him and if there was some way to reverse it...

The thought hit Dean for the first time, the idea forming even as he tried the words in his mind. He wanted to see the tattoo and its effects undone.

Despite the tactical advantage that it might –that it had proved to- give him in the middle of a fight, it was something that Dean could not control. It was a part of _himsel_f that he could not control, like a foot that decides to go left when all the rest of the body is going right.

Setting his mind to the task and ignoring the thundering in his heart as the night's dreams replayed over and over in his head, Dean pressed his foot to the accelerator.

It was unsettling to arrive at the address Benny had given him and find the house familiar. No, more than that... it was the _exact_ same one Dean had seen in his dream. It didn't bode well for the rest.

The two-story house stood isolated at the end of a short private lane, the roof barely seen from the main road.

Madame Lapin didn't live in a cave like the woman he had met in Purgatory, but her house possessed the same gravity to it, like the weight a mountain was pressing down on it, eager to flatten all who stood within the confines of its walls.

Outside, the place was just one more Victorian style house, front porch and second floor balcony decorated with white fences and green vines.

The boards under his feet creaked under his weight as Dean mounted the steps to ring the doorbell. It did not quiet his unease when the door opened before his fingers had reached the button.

"Please, come in," a young man dressed in loose black pants and a matching linen shirt ushered him inside. "The Madame will be with you in a second."

Dean took one fleeting look back, staring longingly at his car. He could still turn back, say he had the wrong house, tell the kid in the Neo outfit that he'd changed his mind. This part, however, hadn't been in his dream and Dean found himself curious about whether he had just been imagining things or if his nightmare had been something else.

Inside, the light was so dim and golden that Dean expected the place to be lit by candles instead of electricity. There was a large room to his right and another to his left. The imposing feature of the lobby, however, was the long mahogany staircase that formed a Y before reaching into the second floor.

Dean wanted to make some joke about 'Gone with the wind' but he found his tongue dry and his hand reaching for the reassuring touch of his gun.

True power gave off a certain kind of energy, like the world was a little tighter, a little thicker around certain people. It was there now, the same as it had been in his dream. It caressed him, constricted around him like a veil of tar.

"You can feel it." The voice was sweet and tender, a touch of smoke and whiskey making it sound like an old friend. "As I can feel you, Dean Winchester."

Dean could not help it. The words –the exact same words she had spoken to him before- had barely registered and the sword was already in his hands, senses struggling to find the threat his brain assured him was there.

The woman that walked down the main stairs was a little bit older than him, hair decorated with glinting metal beads and a long, tight fitting dress the exact same color as her dark skin, making it appear as if she was wearing nothing at all.

Dean tried to keep track of her steps, watching her every move with the alertness of a starved man looking at his meal. He found that it was impossible.

Light seemed to flicker off her, shimmering and pulling the woman out of focus, like a broken record skipping notes. Dean tightened his grip on the hilt of the sword, knowing what would happen next. Inside, he was kicking himself for so foolishly walking into such an obvious trap.

"Relax, _mon chéri_," she beckoned him. The gentleness of her voice urged him to do just that. "I don't bite."

The tone of her words made Dean's eyes snap open. He hadn't even seen her move, and yet the woman was standing right in front of him. Her green eyes were inches from his own, so pale that they seemed to have no color at all.

"Benny told me all about you," she whispered sweetly, her hand pressing against the still fresh gunshot wound in his arm.

Dean gasped. Not because the touch was overly painful, but because it felt like electricity was running through his body, igniting every cell with light and heat.

The woman gasped as well, her hand recoiling from the touch, her serene expression shattered by revulsion. Her face was such that Dean resisted the urge to check himself for some nasty body odor.

"So much death," Madame Lapin whispered, taking a step back. She brushed her fingers against her dress, as if trying to clean the touch away. "_Pauvre infant_..."

Dean's eyes hardened, the sword melting away in the air. Now he knew what she had sensed, felt, whatever, when she touched him. It was a part of who he was, something he could not escape or change about himself. He was a killer, Dean knew that; he had accepted that fact long ago. He would not, however, stand there and be judged by a complete stranger.

"Well... this has been fun," he said, turning away to leave. "Gimme my regards to Benny and tell him I said '_go fuck yourself_', will ya?"

"Wait."

Dean wanted nothing more than to get away from someone judging him so harshly, and yet he found himself stopping, waiting for what she had to say. Part of it was the hard won respect that he had for Benny, part of it was despair. After being burden with questions for so long, this was the first time Dean felt like he could find some answers. Ripping the chance away hurt.

"You presume to know my thoughts, _mon chéri_," the woman said, a playful tone in her voice, "and yet Benny told me nothing about you being a mind reader."

"Look, lady, I get it, okay?" Dean said as he turned, his gaze hard as he kept old emotions in check. "You have the mojo to see into people's mind or whatever and you've seen all the crap I've done and that's awe-"

Once more, the woman moved too fast for him to track, catching the hunter unaware. The hands upon his face were gentle and soft; the eyes meeting his were empty of the condemnation that Dean had expected to find.

The same kind of condemnation that he had learned to live with every time he looked in the mirror. All the lives he had taken before Hell, all the souls he had destroyed there, all the creatures he'd killed in Purgatory... the list went on and on until his hands were so deeply covered in red that nothing could ever wash it away. It was no wonder that she had sensed nothing but death when she'd touched him.

And yet... she was still there, unflinching, not moving away.

"I do not fault you for doing what needed to be done. There isn't a single soul in the world that would," Madame Lapin started, her eyes never leaving his. "But if you want me to help you find all there is to find about what happened to you in Purgatory, we must first shed away that guilt and blood that you carry around like a second skin," she told him. "If I'm to look at the man that you are, we must first clean away all the gore that clings to your soul. _Oui_?"

Dean chuckled without any merriment. "I don't think there's enough bleach in the world."

The woman smiled, exchanging her hold on his face for his hands. "Water will suffice."

:o:

Sam walked across the campus, the unforgiving sun momentarily hidden behind the foliage of the big oak tree in the middle of the plaza that connected the main buildings of the university. All around him, students passed by, barely sparing a glance his way until collision seemed all but unavoidable.

Had he been that focused and self-centered back then, when he was in Stanford?

Sam could barely recognize himself in the mirror these days, much less see any of his old self in the guys and girls walking by, alone, in groups, all of them filled with hope and prospects of a better life.

"Excuse me," Sam called out, his hand poised in front of a girl with two long, brown braids framing her round face. She stopped inches from colliding with his palm, a moment of annoyance registering in her face before she looked all the way up to meet Sam's face. He forced a smile. "Hi. I'm a bit lost. Could you point me in the direction of the fitness center?"

"Straight ahead," she said, pointing a ring-filled finger in the general direction of 'ahead'. Before Sam could ask her to be a little more specific, she was gone.

Sam resisted the urge to turn on his heels and give up, go back to their room where the air-conditioner occasionally worked. Who the hell went to the fitness center in that kind of heat?

There had been one in Stanford as well, not that Sam had ever set foot inside it. After years of John Winchester special hunter-regime, Sam was ready for a lifetime of avoiding gyms. The woman at the campus reception, however, had told Sam that it was where he would find Mathew Glenn's roommate.

The place, as it turned out, was impossible to miss. Glittering in the sun in all of its glass splendor, the fitness center at the University of New Orleans was an imposing two-story building that sat almost at the edge of the campus boundaries.

As soon as Sam walked inside, he wanted to kick Dean in the teeth for having given that particular witness to him. The place was like one gigantic open floor of cardio and fitness contraptions, each with one student or more attached to it. How the hell was he supposed to find one student in the middle of _that_?

"You're looking for Eduardo, right?"

Sam looked at the kid standing to his right, duffel bag casually draped over his shoulder and dark spots under his armpits announcing that he was on his way out rather than arriving.

"You're like the tenth guy that's come snooping around campus trying to snag an interview with the poor guy."

The grief in the kid's voice was impossible to miss. Before it could evolve into downright anger, Sam flashed his fake FBI badge. He guessed that, given the circumstances and the visitor's pass hanging from his neck, 'reporter' was the natural conclusion that any student would make.

The student's mouth formed a perfect O, round eyes to match. Sam guessed that, while opportunistic reporters were common, FBI agents were a first for the kid. Even fake ones.

"So, do you know where I can find Mr. Gomez?" Sam asked, snapping his badge close in a practiced gesture.

There was a long line of treadmills set in front of a wall made of glass, allowing a perfect view of the green fields outside. Why would someone chose to run inside a building _looking_ at a field, instead of running _in_ the field, was beyond Sam's understanding. Personally, he had always enjoyed the feeling of his feet hitting the asphalt and eating the miles away.

Eduardo was running as if the devil himself was chasing him. From the unfocused and glassy look of his eyes, Sam guessed that the kid was seeing anything but the green fields in front of him.

Waking up to find your roommate slaughtered kind of did that to normal people.

"Eduardo Gomez?" Sam called out, flashing his ID as he stood in front of the student. "I'd like to talk to you about your roommate, Mathew Glenn. Is there somewhere we can talk?"

:o:

Dean knew a little something about cleansing rituals; he had even performed a few. He'd figured he was in for some smoke-filled room, spilling some scented oils and, if he was really lucky, some slightly illegal drugs.

Madame Lapin had led him through the house until they reached an annex that was clearly used as a green house. The whole place was made of glass, but instead of cooking under the sun, the place was protected from the elements by a canopy of plants that had grown tall enough to cover most of the ceiling.

In the middle sat a pond the size of a small pool, so perfectly merged with the rest of the surroundings that Dean could not tell if the green house had been built around it or if the pound was nothing but a cleverly built pool.

"Strip."

Dean blinked. It wasn't like the woman wasn't dead drop gorgeous, or that he wasn't use to dead drop gorgeous women saying those words to him. The context, however, left him a little unease. "Excuse me?"

"Unless you want to walk home in drenched clothing, I suggest you strip before performing the cleansing ritual."

"Sorry, lady, but I don't think this is gonna work," Dean said, feet planted on the dirt floor, ready to find his way out. This was all way too weird and uncomfortable for his hunter instincts and there was no way he was about to drop his guard _or_ his clothes just because a beautiful woman asked him to. Not for a cleansing ritual, anyway. "I'll find help somewhere else."

"Benny didn't mention you were this shy." Her eyebrow rose suggestively, leaving no room for doubt that Benny had shared far too much.

Dean took a deep breath, annoyed at her tone. "Benny really should learn when to keep his damn mouth shut," he said before pausing and looking more carefully at the woman. "How did you two meet, anyway?"

He hadn't spared that much time considering the matter, but now that Dean thought about it, there was no way that a vampire who'd been killed over fifty years ago could've crossed paths with a woman who didn't look a day over thirty-five.

Instead of looking uncomfortable with the question, the woman smiled. It made Dean feel like he was missing the obvious. But then again, the only way for her to have know Benny back then was if… "You're a vampire too."

The way Madame Lapin bared her long teeth in reply was too similar to Dean's dream to make him at ease. However, instead of surging forward, as she had done then, the vampire grabbed the edge of her dress before folding her legs to sit by the pool of water, keeping her distance from the hunter. "We were turned by the same vampire, so… you could say that Benny and I are practically related. _Mon petit Lapin_, his little rabbit, he used to call me."

"He never mentioned you," Dean pointed out. His blade was but a hand away, ready to take her head off at minimal provocation.

"I abandoned the nest," she explained. "I had my reasons, but Benny never understood them. I think he always saw my leaving as abandoning him as well."

Dean had to look away. He could understand Benny's sense of betrayal all too well. The sound of the door banging shut as Sam left him and dad for Stanford was one that had tormented him for years. "So, what was the plan here? I get naked, get inside the pool and you drink me dry?" the hunter accused.

"I don't drink blood of the unwilling, Dean," she said, the note of offense in her voice unmistakable. "I haven't done so in a very long time, longer than you've been alive."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, right. I bet they just line right up for a good neck-suckage," he added sarcastically.

"You'd be surprised, Dean Winchester," she said, looking straight into his eyes. "What do you find harder to believe: that some people would willingly offer their blood to me or that I can control myself not to abuse their trust and take too much?" Lapin asked, tilting her head in pure curiosity. "The will and power to control our instincts is a fundamental part of what makes us human… something that I know you understand better than most, _n'est pas_?"

Dean recoiled from the images that her words brought to mind. The fear in that man's eyes, the taste of blood at the tip of his sword, the eagerness to go out and find more. Yes, he knew better than most what it felt like to try and control the beast in you. And he wanted it gone, no matter what. "I'm gonna regret this," he muttered to himself, angrily peeling his coat away at the same time he toed his boots off.

The shirt and jeans quickly followed. Dean's hands paused at the hem of his boxers, his eyes looking up to find Madame Lapin's gaze still on him. He gave her a second to look away, not because of his own modesty –something that, according to Sam, he'd been born without- but to give her a chance to keep some semblance of respect between them. When it became clear that she was as unaffected by his nudity as he was, Dean just peeled the rest of his clothes out. "What now?"

The woman nodded towards the pool, turning her back on him and walking towards a table hidden amidst the plants.

The water was cool, a contrast with the hot air outside. It felt good against his over-heated skin, instantly soothing the tension that he had been all to aware of ever since... forever, it felt.

Dean couldn't honestly remember the last time he had allowed himself to relax in any circumstance that didn't involve sex or booze. And even then, if he was to be honest with himself, that high strung tautness was still there, still reminding him that something was different, something was wrong.

"Close your eyes. Relax."

Her voice was soothing, like a gentle breeze at the end of a hot summer day. Dean could smell the sun and salt in the air and his mind automatically took him to the last time he had smelt that. South Padre Island, Texas, 1989.

Dean had been ten years old, Sam had been just about to start school and dad had a busted leg that had needed some place quiet to heal right.

There were no water parks or onslaughts of tourists then and for the whole month that they stayed, Sam got to be a kid just like any other; carefree and unburden by the gloom of their unusual way of life. If they tried hard enough, they could even pass as any other family vacationing there.

Dean'd had his fun too, in between keeping up with his training and helping out John. It was impossible not to, when everything was an excuse to not wear shoes and have his feet covered in sand twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

A smile spread over Dean's lips despite his best intentions. By the end of that month his hair had turned silver-blond, Sam' skin had turned golden brown and the both of them had turned into savages, at least according to a very grumpy John that had to clean sand out of the Impala for months after that.

Alarmed that he had allowed himself to drop his guard so drastically in the presence of a stranger, Dean sat up straighter, ripples of water slapping against the edges of the pool and splashing the surrounding grass.

Everything was dark.

Convinced that the problem lay within himself, Dean rubbed his eyes hard, trying to see beyond the absence of light.

_Dean_

The name was more of a rustled of wind over leaves than an actual word.

_Dean_

Dean turned around, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. The darkness shifted around him, only enough for him to realize that there was some light now. Dark star light, filtered through a cloudy sky, filling his surroundings with nothing but shadows and almost-shapes.

Purgatory. He was back in Purgatory. A part of him knew that this couldn't be real, that this was not real, that it was all part of some kind of hallucination brought on by whatever crap was in the herbal concoction Lapin had used for the ritual. And yet... he hadn't drink anything and the ground resonated solid and real beneath his boots, the cold light against his skin felt the same as it was before. Even the air smelled equally stale and moldy, like a very old forest.

_Dean_

The voice called from beyond the tree line and Dean followed. He had no other choice. There was something desperate about that voice, something that urged him to go to its aid, no matter what.

"Where'ya going, boy?"

Dean whipped around, his balance off as he turned too fast and slipped on some moss. He _knew_ that voice. "Bobby?"

Even though it was almost pitch black, Dean could see ahead perfectly. The sight of the older man who was like a father to him was far from the joyous delight that Dean could have ever imagined.

Bobby's eyes were sunken inside his skull and, without his cap on, it was impossible to miss the gaping hole in his forehead that had been responsible for his demise.

"Bobby." The word, so short and simple, and yet somehow managed to encompass all of Dean's sorrow and guilt. For what had become of the proud hunter, for all that had been left unsaid, for all of Dean's failures and times he had disappointed the older man. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

In answer, Bobby took two steps and wrapped Dean in an embrace so tight that the younger Winchester could feel his bones grinding together. It was warm and strong and felt so much like home that Dean almost forgot that Bobby was dead and that none of this could possibly be real.

"Language boy," Bobby chided, breaking contact in the same abrupt manner as he had begun it. "Hell if I know... What are _you_ doing here?"

Dean wasn't sure what the answer to that question was. Purgatory was supposed to be a place to work out your flaws, to make emends in hopes of becoming a better person and ascending to a higher place. At least that was what lore had everyone convinced of.

The real thing hadn't exactly been a good-manner's school and Dean hadn't actually become a better person. If anything, he'd become a ruthless hunter with sharp-edged killer instincts.

But this was not the real Purgatory. And even if this was not the real Bobby, the guilty Dean felt for having failed to protect the older man was real enough. Watching helplessly as Dick Roman shot Bobby as they were running away, doing nothing but sit and watch as his doctors failed to mend the damaged caused by that bullet and then having to deal and, ultimately, end the other man's existence by banishing his ghost, had left a gaping hole in Dean's heart. And now he could actually do something about it.

"I'm getting you out of here," Dean decided, knowing even as the words came out that it was the right course, that it was the reason why he was there.

Bobby's eyebrow quirked up. "Unless you're suggesting we clap our ruby shoes, Dorothy, I'm not seeing any exit signs."

"I know the way out," Dean assured. Turning, he eyed the terrain; it was... somewhere around there.

Last time, Benny had been leading the way, but Dean was pretty sure he remembered the path. In fact, he realized as he took a good look around, they weren't that far at all. "Through her—"

The thing that flew out of nowhere was too fast for Dean to shout out a warning or even move. Before he realized it, Bobby was on the ground, a humanoid figure attached to his chest, long fingers clawing at the hole in Bobby's head.

"No!" Dean gulped down bile before picking up a stone from the floor and moving to action. "Stop!"

Too absorbed by the eating frenzy, the monster tearing at Bobby's flesh never even saw Dean until the hunter bashed half her skull in.

The fact that _it_ was a 'her', didn't even register in Dean's frantic brain, not until she had stopped moving. Blood soaked blond hair framed a familiar face as her body lay sprawled next to Bobby's. Still, recognition took even longer to sink in but when it did...

Amy.

Amy Pond. The Kitsune, his brain supplied without being asked.

Eerie cat-like eyes stared lifelessly at the dark sky, her long clawed fingers curled over her chest still dripping blood and brains. _What the hell was she doing there?_

Not that matter in the least. Dean's focus was on Bobby, who had yet to move. "Bobby?"

The older man's head was a gory mess. Amy had managed to widen the bullet hole into a grotesque size, leaving behind a pulp of half eaten brain and broken bones.

Dead already or not, there was no way Bobby was walking away from that.

Dean lost his fight with the bile climbing up his throat and leaned against a tree to empty his stomach. The hot liquid burned his insides like fire as it pushed up. He could always blame the tears in his eyes on that.

_Dean_

He stumbled to his feet, not remembering how he'd fallen to his knees in the first place. The voice was closer than before.

It was a woman's voice, he realized then. A familiar woman's voice that he couldn't quite place.

Something moved at a distance and Dean stopped where he stood. It was hard to see in the dim light, but he could tell that there were two beings running towards him.

He was braced for a fight, eager for it even. And then the figures came into the light and Dean felt his heart skip a beat before racing wildly.

Lisa?

Jo?

What were _they_ doing in that place? Lisa... Lisa was supposed to be alive; he had made sure that she was alive, that she and Ben would be safe without him in their lives.

God... and Jo- she had never done a single thing wrong in her life. She had died to save him, _because_ of him and now she was stuck in Purgatory? How was that fair?

They weren't slowing down. The fact registered in Dean's brain through the haze of confusion and pain and guilt that seemed set to swallow him whole.

They were not slowing down and they were racing straight at him. "What the fuc—"

Despite their shared limbless and petite stature, working as a team they presented a powerful foe. Both bodies collided with Dean at the same time, sending him flying backwards. He landed with a pained huff against a tree trunk, breath stolen from his chest and vision blinking dangerously close to black. "Jo? Lisa?" he breathed out, struggling to support his weigh on his elbows. "What the hell?"

Dean had been greeted in a rather... effusive way by women before. This was not it. There was no joy or delight there. This was so far from it that the hair at the back of his neck was standing to attention. The look on their faces... the hatred was so complete and absolute that it turned their beautiful faces into nothing but snarling masks.

Dean shuddered from seeing it aimed at him.

They didn't give him a chance to get up or try to understand what was going on. Jo jumped to straddle his left leg and hold his arm down while Lisa took up a symmetrical position on his right. He was completely trapped under their combined weight, helpless to move a single hand. The sound of tearing cloth assaulted his ears at the same time the cold registered over his chest. "Hey! Get of—"

The protest died in his lips. Blunt fingers collided with his chest, pushing in as if skin and muscle were made of paper and straw.

Dean's heart was beating wildly, trapped animal inside its cage, running around in circles and finding there was no place to go. Jo and Lisa were smiling, more fingers pressing against him, the warm trickle of blood starting to pool and run down to his navel.

"Stop, please," Dean pleaded. "Why... why are you doing this?"

"Payback," Jo hissed, lifting her fingers momentarily to lick her red-covered digits, the gesture a mock of sensuality for all the wrongness of it.

"Just collecting what is mine," Lisa said, her voice low and seductive, her legs grinding against his thigh.

"No..." Dean wasn't sure what he was denying. They were tearing his heart out and yet, Dean was sure there was nothing left in there _to_ tear out. He had loved both in different manners and had managed to disappoint them in much the same way.

His heart ached, his chest was on fire. "No!" Dean said, more conviction in his voice. A surge of adrenaline cursed through his veins and Dean pushed harder. The feeling of fingers entering his skin was alien and intrusive and God- it hurt!

A familiar tingling roamed his skin, goosebumps that made him feel wired, trapped energy that had only one way of being released.

Before Dean could form a coherent thought, the sword was out. Lisa, standing over his right arm, died instantly as the blade pierced the underside of her head. The surprise in her eyes hurt more than the gash in his chest.

Dean blinked away the wall of tears that had suddenly clouded his vision. No, no, no... this wasn't supposed to happen! Lisa was alive- he had given up on her and Ben to make sure they stayed alive! She couldn't be dea—

Jo snarled, wild and feral, nothing of the playful and self-confident girl Dean remembered present in her face.

Dean knew then that she was not going to stop, that she was not giving up until her hands held his cooling, unbeating heart.

He backed away from her, one hand clasped over his bleeding chest, the other holding the bloody sword in front of him. "Please, Jo... don't made me do this."

She raised her hand, fingers clawed like five daggers ready to finished the job and rip his heart out.

Dean couldn't force himself to kill her- again. Once had been enough to metaphorically achieve what she and Lisa were trying to do physically and Dean didn't have in him to face that ache again.

He closed his eyes, unwilling to carry that visage of hatred as his last memory of the world of the living. This was his choice. It was best to just lay down his arms and let her—

_Dean_

The voice jolted him out his trance. Flight or fight kicked in before Dean could get a grasp of his reactions, arm jerking up to stand between him and a screaming Jo. The blade in his hand cut through her flesh like she was made of soft snow.

The blood that covered his hands was hot as acid and Dean wiped them to his jeans, frantic movements that still failed to be fast enough in ridding him of the feeling of failure and disgust at what he'd done.

_Dean_

"Shuddup, shuddup, shuddup..." Dean covered his ears, not caring about the gut-churning contact, not caring about smearing himself with the blood of the two women he'd just killed. "Shut up!"

He raced away from the bleeding corpses of Jo and Lisa, raced blindly into the darkest part of the forest, raced as fast as he could in hopes of escaping that voice. He didn't care where he ended up, just as long as it was far from that place.

_Dean_

There were people around him, faces that he recognized, faces that he knew he should recognize but that sparkled no recollection. Some where nothing but dark shadows, souls he had tortured and changed, others were faces he would never forget.

_Dean_

Frank Devereaux, Pamela Barnes, Victor Henricksen, Nancy Fitzgerald, Meg Masters, Casey, Ronald Reznick, Marshall Hall... there were so many of them, fingers brushing against his skin, clawing at him as Dean ran blindly.

Dean

That last time, the voice was so perfectly clear and close that Dean had no choice but to stop. He knew that voice...

Looking around, searching for the woman who kept calling his name, Dean was surprised to find himself instead looking at two men that meant the world for him. "Dad?... Sam?"

For a moment, he was sure that they too would rush forward and try to kill him too. After all, who other than his own father and brother had more reason to hate him?

A father who had given his own life and soul to make sure that Dean kept on living, only to see him become this cold-hearted killer that destroyed everything he touched.

A brother who had suffered countless lectures about not using his powers, about the wrongness of being something other than human, only to realize that the person lecturing him was a bigger freak than Sam had ever been.

Dean

The voice was right there, seeming to come right from behind them even though Dean couldn't see a thing there. Instead of attacking him, like Jo and Lisa, Sam and John were just standing, frozen in their spot. They looked... relieved to see him.

Dean's breath shuddered, emotions bubbling inside his chest and threatening to consume him. He hugged his coat closer to him, covering his freezing chest. It was a trick; it had to be a trick.

And then his father's expression opened into a smile and Dean couldn't stop himself any more. God... he had missed him so much.

Dean shortened the distance between them; John's arms opened wide, waiting to hold him. Sam stood by his side, his face dimpling as he too waited for Dean to join them.

Dean felt warm all over. He had almost forgotten where he was. He threw his arms around his father and brother, holding both close to him and breathing in the familiar scents of both men.

The smell of blood assaulted his senses.

Sam's faint gasp of pain sounded like thunder in void of sound that suddenly engulfed Dean. He backed away, heart once more hammering against his chest.

John looked at him, such sadness and disappointment in his eyes that it made Dean feel two inches tall.

He was at lost of why his father was staring at him in such manner until he saw the red stain in John's chest, growing bigger and bigger as the seconds ticked away.

Like two puppets whose strings had been suddenly cut, Sam and John fell to their knees, blood spreading from Siamese wounds.

"No, no, no, no..."

This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. He had just got his father back. It wasn't fair. And Sam...

Dean rummaged around, searching for the murderous bastard who had done this. Whoever it was, Dean was going to kill him for what he had done. "Show your face, you fuck!"

There was no one around, no one but him and his dying family. Desperate, Dean raced back to their side, hands over identical wounds, trying to stem the flow of red.

The more he touched them, however, the harder they bled. "What the fu—?"

Dean pressed harder, frantic hands moving across his father and then Sam, helpless to do anything for either of them.

Pale as death, his lips nothing but a white line across his face, Sam grabbed hold of Dean's wrist. His fingers felt like ice around Dean's skin. "Stop," Sam breathed. "You're killing us."

The denial was half way through Dean's lips when he caught a glimpse of his hands. "Oh, God—"

Each finger was no longer flesh and bone as he'd expected, but a sharp blade instead. A hand full of daggers and he had been using them relentlessly on both Sam and his father, over and over again. "... no"

He backed away, disgusted at himself. What had he done?

Dean

He had almost forgot about the voice. Why was it still tormenting him? "I got it, okay!" he screamed to the empty night. "I'm a killer, nothing but a mo—" his voice failed him, throat drawing shut. "I'm a monster," Dean ended with a raw whisper.

"Dean, look at me."

He couldn't breath, couldn't move and yet... he found himself obeying the voice.

Beyond the bodies of Sam and John, there was a woman sitting in a pool of light. Her long, blond hair shone like a halo. It was too bright to see her face, but as she extended a hand for Dean to join her, he knew exactly who she was.

"Mom..."

She looked exactly as Dean remembered her, eyes bright and mischievous, a promise of safety and love in her smile.

"Come here, sweetie," she beckoned to him, arms opened and inviting.

Dean held back, despite the compulsion to fall into her lure. He knew what would happen if he got too near to her, what had happened to all the people he loved and had died in this place. He was a monster, a killer, but he would not kill his mother as well.

"Nonsense," she said, responding to his thoughts as if they had been on display for anyone to follow. "I'm a hunter too, Dean," she went on. "I know a monster when I see it."

Dean recoiled from her words, staring at his blood-covered fingers-turned-daggers.

"You are not a monster," Mary went on, her gaze softening. "You are my little angel, my Dean. Come here..."

Dean took one reticent step forward before falling to his knees in front of his mother. He kept his hands behind his back, arms pressed against his body, too terrified to move.

And suddenly there were warm arms around him, smelling of clean laundry and Sunday afternoon cookies and sun and wet dirt and freshly cut grass and Dean couldn't help but to sink into the familiarity of it all. He felt safe. He felt like he was _home_. "Mom..."

There was a soft hand running though his hair, raising goosebumps as it went. Dean leaned into the embrace, melting in her warmth as the traveling hand left his hair and start tracing soft patterns over his eyebrow.

For a slip second, Dean became so relaxed that he forgot why he had his hands behind his back and wasn't hugging his mother back in the way he dreamt about for most of his life. He let go and hugged her back.

The second his fingers came in contact with his mother's skin, Dean froze. He closed his eyes in defeat and waited for the blood to start flowing.

"It's okay, Dean," Mary's voice whispered in to his ear. "Everything is okay. See?"

Startled out of his down spiral of fear and defeat, Dean's eyes snapped open. His fingers were just fingers. There was no blood, just water.

His mother was gone. Dean splattered around, looking for Mary.

"Welcome back, _mon chéri_," Lapin greeted him, sitting cross-legged at the edge of the pool. "Found what you were looking for?"

Dean took a shuddering breath. It hadn't been real. None of it had been real. And yet... his skin felt rubbed raw, and his chest was itching, red marks on the same place where Lisa and Jo had tried to rip his heart out. And his hands looked normal again, but there was dried blood underneath his fingernails. "Wha-what happened? What the hell was that?"

"A scrubbing of the soul," Lapin said with a soft smile, handing over a warm towel. "Dry yourself. It's getting late."


	3. Chapter 2

Too all who have reviewed, favorite or decided to follow this story, my deep and sincere thank you. You guys are awesome!

PART II

"Took you long enough."

Sam was going for a complicated mix of pissed off and casual, but the fact was that, after calling an aggravating number of times to Dean's cell and getting nothing but his voice mail over and over again, Sam's stomach had turned into an acid pit. After what had happened the previous night and given Dean's propensity for trouble, Sam knew that he had every right to be worried sick.

He just didn't want to give Dean the pleasure.

"Got a flat tire," Dean said, throwing his jacket at one of the empty chairs. He bent down, tossing their cooler open before picking up a beer. "Found anything?"

Sam made a living out of noticing details that other people might have otherwise miss. It was as much a part of who he was as was the color of his hair. The fact that there was no grease stains on Dean's clothes or hands jumped to his attention as easy as someone had pointed a flashlight at them.

Dean loved his car too much to not get as dirty as a five year old finger-painting when he was fixing up the Impala.

"Just that the victims had the most boring, _normal_ lives ever," Sam replied. "Did you have to take off your shirt to change that tire?"

Dean paused, lips closed around the bottle's opening. He gave his brother a sideways look that expressed just how weird he found Sam to be.

"It's inside out," Sam explained.

There was a moment of panic and frustration that passed too quickly through Dean's eyes for Sam to notice if he'd hadn't been looking for it in the first place.

Dean was hiding something about where he'd spend the day. And the fact that Dean was trying so hard to hide it from him only made Sam more curious.

"What are you now, the laundry police?" Dean threw at him defensively.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Whatever... what about you, find anything?"

Dean's shoulders seem to sag in relief as Sam dropped the matter and changed the subject, another alarm sign that made him sure that he needed to find out what Dean was up to.

Dean shrugged; he picked up a slice of the pizza Sam had brought them for dinner. Hours ago. "The Faerydae's place was empty, might get luckier tomorrow. And apart from a freaky accident last year, there was nothing extraordinary about Martha's life."

Sam's interest perked up at Dean's words. It was too much of a coincidence. "Accident?"

"Yeah," Dean said around a mouth full of cold pizza. "Bus filled with people and some car. Martha survived, but the woman driving the car wasn't as lucky. Why?"

"Mrs. Hoffmann and Glenn's roommate also mentioned an accident last year," Sam said as he made his way to his computer.

"Lots of people were in car accidents last year. That's just life."

Sam gave him a look even as he started typing in the search engine. They both knew that there was no such thing as weird coincidences in their line of work. What were the odds of three of their victims being in the same traffic accident?

"Fine... do your thing," Dean said, pulling off his boots. "I'm gonna hit the shower."

With I-10 driving right through the city, the number of car accidents that popped up in Sam's initial search was a little bit daunting. He filtered out those by number of mortal victims, remembering what Eduardo, Martha and Mrs. Hoffmann had said.

In the end, only one of the results involved a bus. Sam clicked on the news' link.

From the gruesome pictures alone it was easy to guess that anyone inside the car that had collided frontally with the bus hadn't had a single chance of surviving. Skimming through the text, Sam easily recognized the names of the victims of the case that had brought him and Dean to town. Hoffmann was there, the same as Glenn, and Martha. The only one missing was the first victim, Brian Faerydae.

The name of the only mortal victim of that crash, although not belonging to the list of people killed recently, still rang familiar to Sam. Ellen Zimm.

Why was that name familiar?

Sam looked around the room, searching for his notes on the case. Just as his landed on the stack of papers to his right, the lights went out. All the lights, including the screen of his fully charged computer.

"T'fuck?!" Dean's voice came muffled over the sound of the shower's running water. "Stop messing with the damn lights, will'ya?"

Sam's mind was racing. There was something in the room with them, something that had managed to pass through all the sigils and barriers they had put on place.

Sam grabbed the nearest weapon and raced to his brother. He bumped with a wet and solid mass around the area of the bathroom's door.

"Jesus, fuck! Watch it there," Dean complained, hands thrown out to find where Sam had landed after their painful collision. Instead of clothes, Dean's fingers brushed against the cold metal of the gun in Sam's hand.

Sam could feel the second Dean's body tensed as he too realized that there was something amiss. Wordlessly, Sam tried handing Dean the gun he'd picked up. He had a knife in his boot. It wasn't much but it was definitely better than nothing.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, Sam felt Dean pressing the weapon back at him at the same time he remembered. Dean needed no extra weapon.

Whatever was in the room with them seemed in no hurry to make the first move. Sam felt watched, the fine hairs at the back of his neck standing at attention, muscles coiled and ready to spring to action. They were sitting ducks inside that dark place. "We need to get to the door."

Sam took a step forward, knowing that Dean would be right by his side. Another step. Sam's hand brushed by the table, situating himself. Eight feet to the door, left side. By his side, Sam could hear Dean cursing as he stubbed his foot against one of the beds.

Just as Sam was about to course correct and pull Dean closer to lead him away from the beds, a faint gush of warm wind hit him in the face. "Did you feel that?" Sam asked, face turning to look at Dean even though his brother was nothing more than a shadow at that point.

And yet, somehow, Sam knew that there was panic in Dean's eyes even before he heard the warning.

"Sam, look out!"

The wind smacked into Sam like an invisible fist, pushing and punching and stealing his breath until Sam banged against the wall.

Everything went white for a few seconds and then Sam was sliding down the wall, his legs barren of any strength. All around him the wind was howling, pins and needles moving faster than sound stinging his skin.

Sam blinked, his hands barely moving to cover his face from the onslaught. He knew he had to get up and help Dean, he knew he had to move and _do_ something, but his body was rebelling against him, conspiring to render him useless.

In the middle of all the darkness and starbursts of white that Sam was pretty sure were a sign he might've knocked his head a little too hard, he saw blue.

Neon strong, bright blue, moving randomly in the middle of the air, casting weird lines and dots of after glows in the dark. Squinting, Sam could almost discern a pattern underneath the glow, a design. The dots came and went, bright and laser like one second, gone the next, like Morse code gone wild. The lines, however, were always there, forming an elaborate picture that would not stand still long enough for him to put a name to the shape.

Dean grunted in pain and it suddenly clicked. It was the tattoo. The blue glow was coming from Dean's tattoo. Which meant that the blue dots right above it were coming from... Dean's eyes?

Sam was having a hard time focusing or making sense of what was up and down, but there was no way he would sit by and let his brother stand alone against the invisible force trying to kill them. Groping around on the floor, his fingers brushed against cold metal. His gun.

The blue lines were actually helpful. All Sam had to do was aim to the empty space in front of the light show.

Sam fired.

For a split second, there was a flash of light inside the dark room as the gun discharged. It was all too fast, too bright and brief to see anything and yet... Sam could swear that Dean was fighting empty air.

He fired a second and third time, more to catch glimpses of what was going on rather than because of its effectiveness. The gun, loaded with salt rounds, was proving itself useless.

Sam's brain was in a whirlpool of frantic ideas surging as fast as they were discarded as useless. The thing attacking them was invisible, it was standing between them and the door and they had no idea how to fight it. Even Dean's magic sword, that had managed to have an effect on pretty much every type of monster Dean had used it against so far, wasn't having much result now.

"Stand still, you mother fucker," Dean grunted, the tiredness in his voice alarming Sam. Whatever Dean was doing to keep it at bay, it wouldn't work for much longer. They needed to figure out what the thing was and beat it or find a way to get the hell out of that room.

Using the wall as a support, Sam gingerly got to his feet. Standing up made the wind feel all the more corrosive, eating away at his skin like he was in the middle of a sand storm. He patted his pockets, desperate for anything that might turn their situation around. His fingers touched something large and filled with liquid. His flask of holy water.

They weren't dealing with a demon; that much Sam knew. He had been the one laying out the salt lines and the various sigils to ward them against angels and demons as soon as they claimed the room as theirs. It had become as intrinsic to their routine as brushing their teeth in the morning.

There was a change in the heavy air inside the room and, even without being able to see much, Sam knew that the battle had turned. Seconds after he arrived to that conclusion, a solid body collided with his, bone gritting on bone and stealing the breath from his lungs.

"Dean? Dean, you okay?"

From the lack of movement from the body lying practically on his lap, Sam already knew that there was going to be no answer. Without Dean's mysterious sword to keep the thing at bay, they were screwed. This was it. This was when the Winchesters bought the farm.

Not for the first time, Sam cursed the fact that the damn sword only worked for Dean and that, with his brother currently unconscious –God, Sam hoped he was just unconscious and not something worse- they had nothing to fend themselves.

The wind picked up, physically pushing Sam and Dean against the wall. A vision of their bodies being found in the morning like the other victims, eyeless and with their mouths sowed shut wasn't as disturbing to Sam as the idea that they would both end up in the autopsy room of that weird Dr. Zimm—

Ellen Zimm, Dr. Zimm. In a place like that, there was next to zero chance that the two of them weren't related.

The connection, literally when it was too late and too useless, almost sent Sam into giggles. He pulled Dean closer, instead, afraid that the intrusive wind would pull him away and he would lose track of his brother in the darkness. If they were about to die, at least they would be together.

Dean's body pressed the holy water flash against Sam's ribs and he pulled out. In his mind, he knew that the thing was going to be useless against whatever it was that was seconds away from ending their life, but then again, what did he had to lose?

Although he could not see their attacker, Sam could certainly feel its presence inside the room. It was something heavy and powerful, filling the whirling wind with static. Sam waited until he was sure that the thing was close enough and tossed the entire content of the flash in the general direction of his gut feeling of 'evil'.

If he'd ever got to win the lottery, Sam figured the feeling wouldn't come as close as the elation he felt when the holy water landed with a hiss and an inhuman howl. The wind skipped and stopped altogether before all the lights came back on.

Sam blinked, the sudden, bright light sending daggers of pain to his brain. He could hardly believe what had just happened. In fact, he had no idea what had just happened.

The room around them was a mess, the two of them at the center of a hurricane.

"Dean?"

Now that he could actually take a look at his brother and find out what was wrong, Sam's finger flew to the pulse point in his brother's neck. The skin under his fingertips was warm and slick with sweat, but Sam needed the steady beat of a heart to put his worry at rest.

He knew that he should get up and move Dean to one of the beds; he knew that he should, somehow, secure the room in case the entity came back; he even knew that the fact that the coroner and the mortal victim of the accident that linked all the victims was important and needed to be addressed.

At the moment, however, the only thing that Sam's addled brain could process was Dean' steady heart beat under his fingertips and the solid wall behind his back. Sam hugged Dean closer to him and let the darkness pull him under again.

:o:

Dean woke up sweating. Sam had always been a furnace, heat irradiating from his skin like a damn fireplace; Dean knew that because they'd shared a bed on more occasions than he was comfortable with.

What he didn't know and –honestly- was kind of scared to find out, was why the hell he was currently draped over Sam's lap like some fucking huggy bear. Buck-naked.

First Castiel and now Sam. No sense of personal space whatsoever, the both of them. "I have to be the only fuck in the world who this crap keeps happening," Dean mumbled as he pried free of Sam's grip on his arms and scurried away.

There was sand all over the floor, peppering the soles of his feet as he took a couple of steps.

As Dean took in the destruction in the room, the events of the previous night came rushing back. That damn whirling piece of shit that seemed to dissipate in silvery smoke every time he had tried to strike at it had beaten the crap out of the both of them.

Suddenly, his annoyance at Sam's lack of respect for his personal space was gone, replaced by deep worry.

Kneeling back down, Dean's hands roamed over the back of Sam's head. Flacks of dried blood covered his fingertips. "Shit, Sam!"

Sam's eyes moved under their lids at the sound of his name and Dean moved closer, grabbing his brother's face. "That's it, Sammy. Quit being such a lazy ass and wake up."

Obedient in a way he refused to be when he was fully conscious, Sam obliged his command. "Dean?"

"How're you feeling? Anything hurt?" Dean quickly asked, sitting back down. His legs were shaking and his muscles felt to have the same consistency as over-cooked pasta. "Besides the ostrich egg at the back of your head?"

As usual, Sam went from zero to full-charged in the blink of an eye. "Shit! Dean... are _you_ okay? What the hell happened? Did it come back? Shit! I'm sorry man... I couldn—"

Dean got up, hiding a wince as he reached for some clothes. If Sam's brain was working that fast, firing questions left and right like it was ducks' hunting season, than it had certainly not turned into mush. "I'm fine," he started, ignoring the way he could feel every muscle in his body complaining about the workout they'd gotten the previous night. "And seeing as we're both still breathing and, you know, with eyes still attached to our faces, I'm guessing the freak gave up. Hell, I'm pretty sure it gave up, because I sure don't remember winning," he finished with a tired sigh. In fact, the last thing he could remember was having a sharp argument with the wall and losing.

"I threw holy water at it," Sam blurted out.

Dean stopped midway through getting dressed. _Holy water?_ "Why?"

Sam was struggling to push himself up and Dean moved to land a hand. Sam waived him off. "Salt wasn't working and it was the only other thing I had on me," he offered sheepishly, exchanging parking his bottom on the floor for parking it on a chair. He wasn't feeling still quite right for vertical. "Maybe I got the protection sigils wrong... maybe it is some kind of demon?"

Dean shook his head. The weather report _could_ get the weather wrong; the frigging English dictionary _could_ get a word wrong; but Sam _never_ got the protection sigils wrong. "It wasn't a demon. It wasn't possessing some poor bastard and there was no black smoke either. Whatever it was, it was made of this crap," he pointed out, crouching down to grab a handful of sand from the floor and letting it slide between his fingers. "It was like fighting the damn mummy."

Dean paused, giving room for Sam to start running off with at least ten different theories about what had attacked them last night, a handful of creatures that they might be dealing with or at least one good idea on what the fuck was going on. The silence, however, was weird.

Looking up from lacing his boots, Dean found his brother looking at him like he was a strange plant in an animal exhibition. "What? Shirt inside out again?" Dean asked even as he checked for himself.

"You saw what it looked like?"

It sounded simple, but somehow it felt like a trick question. Dean fought the urge to deny everything. Instead he nodded, regretting it immediately as he saw Sam's eyes narrow. "I mean, it was dark and all, so there's really no telling, but—"

"The thing was invisible, Dean," Sam blurted out. "Even with the gunpowder flash of the gun, I couldn't see its shape or form. In fact, the only thing I _could_ see was your tattoo and your frigging eyes, glowing in the dark."

Dean stopped breathing. "What?"

"You heard me," Sam went on, closing the distance between them. "Last night, when you were fighting the invisible being that you can apparently see, your eyes were glowing blue, with a matching tattoo."

"That's... that's not possible," Dean said, standing his ground. It couldn't be possible. The tattoo had never done that and his eyes... "You hit your head pretty hard, Sam," he reminded both himself and his brother. The mind plays tricks when the brain gets bounced around. "I'm pretty sure you were seeing things that weren't there. That _couldn't_ be there."

Sam deflated, sitting back on the chair and rubbing the spot at the back of his head. "But you could see it, couldn't you?"

Dean nodded, his eyes focused on the floor. Truth was he was as clueless about what it all meant as Sam was. "I had no idea, Sam," he confessed. "I honestly thought you were seeing the same thing as me."

Sam closed his eyes. Dean could read the size of his brother's headache by the lines around his eyes. "Okay... okay," Sam whispered, running his fingers through his disheveled hair. "One shit at a time... we need to pay a visit to Dr. Zimm."

Dean's brow furrowed. What did the coroner have to do with any of this? "Was there a new victim?" he asked confused, thinking that Sam might've forgotten to mention it earlier.

"Not a new one," Sam said, the ghost of a smile playing over his lips. "An old one."

:o:

It was a thin connection. Dean had pointed that out as soon as Sam explained his theory. It was, however, their only thread to follow.

"So, the coroner's wife was the only one who bought the farm," Dean asked, trying to get all the facts straight in his head. Not an easy feat when his thoughts kept being sidetracked to the stuff Sam claimed he'd seen the previous night. "And every single one of our victims was in that bus accident last year?"

Sam started to nod, winced and settled for a mumbled 'yeah'. "Well, Faerydae wasn't there. He is the only one who doesn't fit."

Dean twisted his nose. It felt like they were pulling strings out of thin air. "And who was to blame for the crash? What did the police report say?"

Sam fumbled with the papers in his lap, cursing when half slid from his legs to land on the floor of the Impala. He made one half-hearted attempt to reach down and get them but gave up on the complicated gymnastics the action would involve. "I don't think that really matters, Dean," he ended up saying. "None of the victims were actually driving the bus, whether the fault lay with the bus driver or not. I think this is more about the survivors rather than who's to blame for the one who died."

Dean nodded, testing the idea in his head. People did really stupid things for those they loved. He would never forget the amount of grief and pain that Sue Ann La Grange, the preacher's wife, had caused when she decided that it was actually a good idea to keep a reaper as pet and have it do her biding. In the end, she had ended up lying in the bed she'd made, but not before a lot of good people died at her hands.

If the coroner had somehow managed to find some obscure entity to seek out some misguided revenge in his name...

Dean unclenched his fingers from around the wheel and parked the Impala in front of the Zimms' house. The doc had better have a very good explanation for what was going on.

The man's car was parked at the curb in front of the house but no one was answering the door.

"Screw this," Dean mumbled, fishing his lock picks from his pocket. "Cover for me."

Good thing about having a giant for a brother? Even facing a main street as they were, if Sam stood in front of Dean, no one would even guess that there was a second person behind him, breaking and entering.

"We're in."

The house looked abandoned. It was obvious that someone lived there because the boots by the door had fresh dirt on them and the mail had been picked up, but there was a lack of care in every surface and wall that made it hard to believe that someone actually called that derelict a home.

There was a smell of mold in the air, mixed with unwashed body and some unidentified aroma that both Winchesters had long learned to associate with death.

Sam exchanged a look with his brother, both of them reaching for their guns.

"Dr. Zimm?" Dean called out, even though he knew no one would reply.

They moved forward, feeling like intruders on some lost mausoleum. Explorers uncovering the great pyramids. Dean was pretty sure that, like them, they were going to find nothing but dead people inside.

Dirty, empty glasses lay scattered across a number of pieces of furniture, halos of wet stains long dried underneath them attesting to their ancientness like some sort of carbon dating.

There were stacks of papers and books leaning against both walls of the tight corridor that led to the other side of the house, precarious towers that made for an obstacle course Sam and Dean could barely pass.

They found what was left of Dr. Zimm in the bedroom at the end of the corridor.

There was an anemic string of sunlight coming from between the drawn curtains, but it was enough for them to see that they had lost their only lead in the case. More than a day ago, from the looks of his corpse.

Dr. Zimm, like the others, was lying on his bed, dead. "Irony... ain't it a bitch?" Dean whispered, taking in the sowed mouth and the missing eyes. "Just when we wanted him to spill the beans..."

Sam closed in to place two fingers under the man's jaw. There was really no point, not when decay had clearly already set in, but given that he had been so certain that the coroner was the guilty part, Sam felt like he owed the man that much.

Dropping his hand, Sam looked closer at the body. Zimm looked... at peace. Given the way he had died, peacefulness was the last thing Sam would have expected to find in the man's expression, and yet, there it was.

There was also sand all over the bed. "Dean, look," Sam called out. "More sand."

Dean pulled the curtains apart, flooding the room in light. "Well... that's new."

Sam looked at his brother, following his gaze to the wall above the bed. There, in big black letters that seemed burned into the plaster, were the words DRöM SöTT.

"That's..." Sam started, pausing with his mouth opened and pulling out his phone. "I have no idea what that is."

"Yeah... kind of like this whole case," Dean vented.

He looked around the untidy room. Everything that was out of place -the piles of clothes, the turned over picture frames, the tilted paintings- seemed to have been like that for a very long time. Whatever had happened in that room, it hadn't been the same kind of assault that he and Sam had suffered in their motel room the previous night. There were no signs of struggle here, no indication that such a violent act had been committed.

The only place that seemed to be cleaner and actually untouched by the general unkemptness of the whole house, was the white vanity table at the corner of the bedroom, facing the window. On it, there was a selection of beauty creams, makeup and jewel boxes that Dean was pretty sure didn't belonged to the defunct Dr. Zimm.

In the middle of the mirror, looking back at him, was the smiling face of a woman in her forties. Mrs. Zimm. "It's like a fucking shrine," Dean whispered, unable to not feel a little disturbed by the arrangement.

Behind him, reflected on the shiny surface of the mirror, Dean could see Sam, sad face contemplating the vanity table's contents, the last piece of his wife that Dr. Zimm had managed to hold on to, probably left untouched since the day she'd died. "People do crazy things for the ones they love," he said. "Specially the ones that are taken away from them."

Dean shook his head. It wasn't like either of them could stand on much of a high horse about doing crazy shit over loved ones –they kind of held the record on that one- but there was crazy and there was _crazy_. "Come on," he said, suddenly itchy to get out of that place. "Lets find out if the doc here chewed on more than he could handle and got chewed back."

:o:

"Dröm sött," Sam whispered, trying out the words against his tongue, as if looking for a flavor. "None of the other victims' reports mentioned any writing on the wall."

"Those the weird words on the doc's bedroom?" Dean asked. Somehow, they sounded more ominous when written than coming out from Sam's mouth. "What is that, anyway? Klingon? Elvish?"

Sam snorted. "Lets rule out _real_ languages before we move on to geek ones, okay?"

"Whatever," Dean said with a practiced shrug that made him look like he actually cared that his suggestions had been put aside.

"I need some decent net connection," Sam confessed, closing his computer. The rather impressive databank that he had managed to put together on his computer had nothing on those words or any combination similar to them. He needed to widen his search.

Dean nodded. He pulled over at the first motel offering free WiFi. "Check us in and see if you can make heads or tails of the creepy poetry."

Sam looked at the motel's neon sign. '_THE LUCKY STAR'_. Well, with two busted lights as it was, it read more like '_THE UCKY TAR'_, which Sam found to fit it perfectly. Different from the one they had left trashed earlier that morning and yet, still managing to look exactly the same. "And you?" he asked, picking up his stuff and getting out. From the way he had kept the motor running, it was clear that Dean had no intention to follow him inside.

Dean looked at the street, avoiding Sam's eyes to look at the non-existing traffic. "Gotta deal with some shit," he offered. "Be back later with some food, okay?"

Sam gritted his teeth, even as he kept the smile on and nodded to the back of a speeding away Impala. For someone who spent half his life lying through his teeth, Dean was pretty bad at it. But if that was the way his brother wanted to do it, then two could play the game.

Grabbing his backup phone, Sam dialed in the client assistance number for the phone he'd purposefully left in the Impala. "Hello? Yes, I was wondering if you could help me? I lost my phone and I really could use your help tracking its GPS signal... yeah, sure, my social is..."

:o:

Sam's not even sorry for the car he steals. The thing is a rust bucket that coughs out black smoke out its ass every two miles and if, when he's done with it, Sam rolls it down a hill and watches it crash and burn, someone will probably thank him for that. Possibly the car itself.

It does take him from point A to point Dean, which fortunately isn't very far or Sam would probably end up having to steal a second car.

The Impala is parked outside a private lane, old houses lining from one side and the next. The whole neighborhood speaks of old money, ancient roots and Sam's at a loss as to just whom it is Dean might know there.

Dean was just sitting in the car. Given the time it took for Sam to get a location on the cell phone he had conveniently forgotten in the glove compartment and finding a car to drive him there, Dean must had been sitting in the same spot for quite some time.

Sam nibbled at his lip. It felt wrong to be spying on his own brother like that and Sam was well aware that he was the last person that could complain to Dean about keeping secrets from your family, but...

Not two nights before, Sam was patching him up for a frigging _bullet wound_ that Dean refused to tell him how he got; and then there had been the whole freaky thing with the blue lights in the room, something that Sam was ready to discard as an hallucination from his concussed brain if it weren't for the fact that he couldn't let it go; and to crown all the weird with a big cherry of _whatthefuck!?_ there was the fact that Dean now could, apparently, see invisible beings.

Sam was concerned. Hell! He was downright frantic about the way Dean was behaving and if the only way to find out what was going on with his brother was to spy on him, then that was exactly what Sam was going to do. Even if he hated himself about doing it.

Seemingly having come to a decision of his own, Dean stepped out of the car and walked with determined steps to one of the houses.

Sam waited until he was out of sight before following him in. Tension mounting within, he struggled to keep his breathing even, heart hammering against his chest. Sam knew his brother's moods and body language and from the way Dean was moving, Sam was pretty sure that he was about to get very nasty on whoever lived in that house.

So, when a woman came to the door and greeted Dean with a smile as she moved aside to allowing him in, Sam felt a little bit betrayed. Betrayal tinged with quickly mounting anger-based frustration.

He'd been worrying himself sick and Dean had taken time off their case to make a _booty call_?

Fuming, Sam made his way back to the piece of shit car he had driven there. For a split moment, he considered just taking the Impala and let his brother walk back to the motel, worrying _himself_ sick that the Impala had been stolen. That would serve him right.

Ultimately, though, the last thing Sam wanted was for Dean to ever find out that he had followed him there. So, he made his way back to the motel, checked them in and sat himself in front of the computer, looking for a translation for the message left behind by their mysterious creep. If Dean never found out, the whole situation would never be so utterly humiliating for Sam. Probably.

:o:

Dean sat in the Impala, knuckles white from the grip he was keeping on the steering wheel. He had managed to avoid the matter with Sam, distracted first with Sam's injury and later with the only lead they had in their case.

After leaving the Zimms' house, clueless on what to do next and with too much time to think as he drove, there was no way Dean could keep it at bay any longer.

He had been fine and _almost_ normal before accepting the weird-assed cleansing ritual thing that _Madame_ Lapin had convinced him to take. And _afterwards_, he was seeing stuff that he was not supposed to see, stuff that was invisible to Sam and his eyes, apparently, was frigging glowing –glowing!- in the dark! Fuck! The math wasn't that hard to figure.

Now, he was here, sitting outside her house, convincing himself why it was a bad thing to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze until something snapped.

Taking a deep breath, Dean consciously let go of the steering wheel one finger at a time. Talk first, shoot later. He could do that.

There was no assistant to answer the door this time around. Lapin herself opened the door, all smiles and niceties, like they were old friends.

Dean counted to ten in his head, in Latin to make it extra grittier. "We need to talk," he spat, not waiting for her invitation to get inside.

The second she closed the door behind him, Dean's fingers were around her neck, despite everything he had told himself not to do. "What the fuck did you do to me?" he said through clenched teeth.

Lapin blinked, looking at him with a degree of amusement that was not helping Dean's anger management issue. Her fingers covered his across her neck, the movement more sensual and intimate than the situation called for.

Her skin was cold, seeming to leech out any heat that he radiated. When her fingers pulled at his, loosening his hold on her neck, Dean didn't resist.

"Tell me," he hissed, pulling his hands away, satisfied that they'd left an impression behind, finger shaped bruises on her neck. "Tell me what you did to me and how the fuck we're gonna change it back!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean could see Lapin's assistant now, peeking out from one of the rooms, looking like he was one step away from calling the police.

Lapin waved him away, as undisturbed by Dean's shouting as she had been with his fingers around her neck.

"I didn't _do_ anything to you, Dean, _mon chéri_, " she finally said, her eyes meeting his, unflinching, bearing nothing but sincerity. "That much I can guarantee you. Now, if you tell me what happened, I might be able to help you figure out what the problem is, _oui_?"

Dean ran his fingers through his short hair. His head was sweaty and he felt sticky all over. On edge. "That's bullshit! I came here yesterday looking for some answers and when I leave, I'm..."

Lapin moved closer, head tilting to the side, trying to catch his eyes. "You... you what? Tell me what's wrong, Dean."

"I'm seeing things," he whispered, his voice suited for confessional at a church. He _felt_ like was confessing something important. Admitting that he was a freak. "I'm seeing things that no one else can see."

In her silence, Dean wondered if this was how crazy people felt. Admitting to something so massively huge and waiting for someone else to validate that for them, to absolve them, pat them in the shoulder and say 'that's okay... everyone has imaginary friends'.

"I know you have no reason to trust me," Lapin said, finally breaking the silence. "But believe me when I say that when you left this house yesterday, you carried out with you only what you had carried within, only lessened. The cleansing bath was only ever meant to clear you mind and give you a better view of—"

Dean snorted, a deranged and abrasive noise that sounded wrong in every aspect of its ugliness. "Oh, I definitely got a fucking better view, didn't I?"

Lapin sighed, for once sounding like the ancient being that she truly was. "You're not listening, _mon chéri_," she said sternly. "You need to stop asking what changed since yesterday to make you see what no one's supposed to see and start asking yourself what _can_ you see that no one else can."

"That's a complete load of cra—"

Dean stopped, giving himself time to do something other than simple reaction and denial. She could actually be on to something.

When he had been hanging between life and death, Dean had been able to see Grim Reapers, _his_ Grim Reaper to be exact, a being that was invisible to all else. And when he'd been on his last hours before getting on the Hell train, he had been able to see all sorts of demonic beings, including the _invisible_ Hellhound that had been dispatched to bite his head off.

But those had all been temporary, really _fucked up_ situations. They had come and gone and Dean had remained the same messed up human being he had ever been.

There was, however, one type of being that Dean had been able to see. That, for all he knew, he would be able to see for the rest of his life because he had been a guest –prisoner- at their realm.

"Fucking fairies!"

:o:

It took Sam a whole of ten seconds to get a translation on the words written above Zimm's bed. _After_ he had spent two hours going through every obscure _dead_ language he could think of.

Turned out 'dröm sött' was Norwegian for 'sweet dreams'.

Ten seconds after that, Sam knew what they were fighting and was kicking himself for not having seen the signs before. The sand had been a pretty frigging clue, after all.

The Sandman.

Of course, there was absolutely no information on what the Sandman actually was or how to kill it. All Sam could find were some old, North European folklore legends and a couple of children's tales.

One of the folklore stories he dug up, however, had kind of explained the missing eyes. Apparently, the Sandman had a reputation for more than fabricating dreams and filling people's eyes with grit; it actually liked stealing people's eyes.

The sowed mouths were still a mystery.

According to some, Sam read, the Sandman was some type of fairy. To others, a witch.

Sam leaned back into his chair, feeling the soreness of being in the same position for too long. He wrinkled his nose. Neither fairy or witch seemed to fit in what he and Dean had found out thus far, nor did it fit what had happened when they were attacked.

For one, witches were still humans and the thing that had attacked them was incorporeal, or at least invisible to _most_ people. And fairies...

It had taken a great deal of misery and pain for him to get his memories back, but Sam was thankful for them now. He remembered how frustrated that leprechaun had been with his fairy-compulsion to count every single grain of salt that Sam had spilled in front of him. If fairies had attacked them in that room, with all the salt lines that he had laid on every window and door, they would've spent the entire night counting grains instead of beating the crap out of them.

Besides, since when were fairies or witches affected by holy water? It just didn't make any sense.

Of course, on the other hand, _if_ Sandman was in fact a fairy, that would explain why Dean had been able to see it while Sam had not. Dean, after all, had been the one snatched right from under Sam's soulless fingers and taken… some place that they had never heard of and from where Sam would have never been able to retrieve his brother if Dean hadn't been able to rescue himself.

Sam got up and paced the length of the room. It would make his life so much easier if the explanation for Dean's actions the previous night was as simple as that. Sandman was a fairy and Dean had been able to see it because, of the two of them, he was the only one who could. Neat, wrapped-up-in-a-nice-red-bow explanation.

The opposite of that was, of course, facing the possibility that Sandman was something else entirely and that Dean had been able to see it because Dean was… different.

It wasn't such a deviation from reality –well, their reality, at least- for it to be completely out of consideration. After all, his brother did have a tattoo that could turn into a deadly sword at the speed of Dean's thought. Was it really so insane to think that he could also see monsters that were usually hidden from normal sight?

Sam shook his head. No, the real question here was whether Dean was absolutely clueless about his abilities or if Dean was actually aware of them and was just playing Sam for a fool. Again.

After all, it took them almost being killed for Sam to even find out that Dean had left Purgatory with a new toy. It wasn't every day that they clashed with invisible monsters, so, how hard would it really be for Dean to hide something like this from him?

Whether or not Dean was playing him, Sam couldn't help but wonder what all of these changes –if that was in fact the case, and that was the mother of all ugly-assed _ifs_- meant for Dean's future. How far from the ordinary could you get and still call yourself human?

Sam ran a trembling hand over his hair. That particular question had haunted him for a long period of his life. All of his life, it would seem on some days. The darker days, the days when he would look into the mirror and feel that the answer to that question was 'this far'. The days he feared he was a monster.

Dean had convinced him otherwise, had shown him that he was still human, that he was still his brother. Sam had no idea if he had it in to do the same for Dean.

Shaking himself out from such a line of thought, Sam turned his brain towards the matter at hand. Which flavor of monster was Sandman… animal, vegetable or mineral?

Sinking back into his uncomfortable chair, Sam ignored the computer and pulled out the stack of papers he had managed to gather so far. Dean gave him shit about the volumes of prints and paper files that Sam always seemed to cultivate during their cases, but the truth was Sam did it for his brother. Dean was a tactile kind of guy and sometimes –okay, most of the times- he would figure something out in those stacks of papers that Sam had missed in his computer files.

Sam aligned all of their four –now five- victims in a row on top of one of the beds and just stared at them, wishing that they could talk to him and tell him what had killed them. As five gruesome corpses stared back at him, Sam did realize something. They were still missing an important part of their puzzle.

He had talked to Mrs. Hoffmann and Mathew Glenn's roommate and Dean had seen Martha Figgs' sister, but they were still missing information the most important victim of all, the one that didn't fit. Brian Faerydae.

Dean had mentioned something that there had been no one home when he had tried the Faerydaes' but given Dean's recent penchant for lying, Sam had to consider that he might've not even come close to that house.

Looking at the clock, Sam thought about waiting for Dean to come back and the two of them visiting the Faerydaes together. He quickly dismissed that idea.

Whatever Dean was doing with that woman –and no, Sam wasn't even going to start down that road- it was clearly more important than the case they were working.

Two stolen cars in one day. That was a new low, even for Sam.

:o:

Dean drove around aimlessly. When Sam had texted him, telling that the mysterious words meant 'sweet dreams' and that they were probably hunting the Sandman, Dean had smiled. They're lives were weird.

Still, it made perfect sense. Sandman was probably some rogue fairy, killing off people instead of making them dream of ponies and cotton candy and all kinds of shit people would expect from a children's story tale.

Dean had read a lot about fairies after his unfortunate brush with them. There were still black spots and fuzzy moments in his memory of the event –parts that he _really_ had no interest in remembering- but Dean had figured that the more he knew about his enemy, the better.

Dean imagined that this Sandman freak would need some place to rest his creepy sandy feet during the day, while he wasn't out murdering people or beating up hunters. Fairies like caves and lakes, preferably a combination of both and if there was one thing that New Orleans didn't lack, it was rivers and lakes.

If he allowed himself to think about it, Dean could remember in exact detail what this particular fairy had looked like. Unlike the shimmering light of bulbous and nervous energy being that he had killed with a microwave, or the surly, homeless look of the killer sent by the king of the fairies to kill him, Sandman had looked like a black hole where all light got sucked in. Like a negative picture, in fact, the kind of image you see when looking at old photos' negatives.

He guessed that with all the types of fairies that there were, each of them would look and feel different.

Dean stopped the car suddenly and back up a couple of feet. Turning, he looked deep into the forest and searched for the thing that had caught his attention.

There.

A shimmering light, skirting just behind the trees, going in and out of sight like a breadcrumbs trail made of energy. Rolling the car into park at the edge of the road, Dean grabbed his shotgun loaded with salt rounds, packed a few extra ones in his pocket and walked into the woods.

:o:

The woman who answered the door had light blue eyes that seemed devoid of color in the late afternoon sun.

"Mrs. Faerydae?" Sam offered. He'd seen pictures of the whole family in the local newspaper. He knew she was Brian's widow. The lines of pain had never really left her face.

The woman nodded briefly.

"My name is John Stewart," Sam went on, pulling an old and faded library card. Just as long as she didn't look too closely, it would do. "I'm with the Archeological Institute of America. The AIA is honoring a number of prestigious names in the field and Dr. Faerydae's will be featured as one of the most preeminently honored," he stopped for breath, glad that the woman hadn't slammed the door in his face yet. "I was hoping you could help us with some of the more personal aspects of his life and career?"

Mrs. Faerydae looked at Sam for the longest time, her gaze seemingly cutting right through him. Despite the fact that he had been spinning bullshit just as a means to talk to a witness, her silent contemplation had Sam sweating under his cheap suite.

Coming to a decision, she stepped to one side. "I have an appointment in forty minutes," she said dryly, motioning him in. "You have twenty of those."

She didn't offer him coffee, tea or even a glass of water. She just sat in front of Sam, on the hard leather couch and stared at him with those cold eyes, waiting.

In his head, Sam was going through every piece of information he had been able to gather about the first victim. There had been a few papers published by the late Faerydae but, as far as Sam had been able to find out, nothing in the two years prior to his death.

Looking around the living room, it was plain to see the archeologist's influence in the decoration. Sam felt like he was inside a museum; the place even smelled like one.

Faerydae's area of expertise had been Ancient Greek history, something that Sam could've easily guessed by the number of vases and amphorae of all sizes and shapes scattered across the room.

"We have copies of all his papers and research, of course," Sam started, "but what we were hoping you might help us with was the period in between his publication and the day of his death. Was he working on anything in particular, any kind of research that we might—"

"Steal?" she cut in bitterly. "Use it to poke more fun of him?"

"I'm…" Sam stammered, caught off guard by her tone and sharp accusations. The bitterness in the woman's voice made him rethink his strategy. It felt like he had just stumbled over a nest of hornets. "I'm sorry… I have no id—"

"Don't play me for a fool, Mr. AIA," she spat back at him. "You know as well as I do that Brian never got the respect of his peers in life and sure isn't going to get it now that he's been dead for over a year. And all because of his stupid obsession about lost cities and ancient gods that no one really gives a damn about!"

Sam sat silently, waiting for the woman to vent all that had been stuck in her chest, apparently, for all this time. Hoping for more information, he decided to sit quietly and wait her out.

She got up and turned her back to him, the tension in her shoulders letting Sam know that her rage was still strong. "He gave everything, _everything_ to his work. His life, his... family. And the only thing his colleagues ever remembered him for was his stupid ideas and this."

Sam looked up. Over the mantle in the fireplace, in a place of honor, was two halves of a golden, broken amphora.

"Brian brought it from his last excavation site, in a small island outside of Greece," she explained. "He believed it pre-dated all others that had been found before. Maggie, our daughter, broke it and Brian... lost it."

Sam nodded. There was no sign of a child anywhere in the house, no scattered toys, no children's books, not a pillow out of its place, so the idea that the Faerydaes had a daughter was slightly surprising. From the sorrow that he detected in the woman's voice, Sam could guess that something bad had happened.

Fairies... they had been into taking first-borns, if he remembered right, but they seemed to go after the sons only. "It was an accident, I'm sure," Sam said, trying to excuse the actions of a man he had never met. "Such an important piece, it's understandable that Dr. Faeryd—"

"There was an outbreak of meningitis in Maggie's school the next day," Mrs. Faerydae went on, her eyes lost in the painful memories. Sam's words hadn't even registered. "Her entire class got sick. My little girl—" she sobbed, hands clasping the shards of the broken clay like it was the only thing keeping her afloat. "My little girl was the only one who didn't make it. Brian never forgave himself."

Sam's lips pressed into a hard line. The last thing he had done before John died was to try goading him into a fight. The bitter words that had left his mouth would forever be the last he ever spoke to his father and that was something that had haunted him for a long time.

To some degree, going back in time and meeting John's younger version had helped Sam deal with that sorrow, to deal with that deep sense of unfinished business. He had been able to see a side of his father that he had never witnessed, had seen the tender side of a man who had ever only meant to love and protect his family. Sam had been able to say to his father that he loved him, even if young John hadn't really grasped what Sam was saying.

Sam knew how truly blessed and unique his chance had been. For most people –for everyone else- regretful words and deeds taken towards those they'd love and lost stayed regretful and impossible to take until the end of their days. He couldn't even imagine what it had felt like for Brian Faerydae to traumatize his young child over a piece of clay and never having had the chance to make it up to her.

"Brian was never the same after that," the woman said, confirming Sam's thoughts. "Dying... even being killed like that, was a blessing for him."

One that she seemed to envy her husband for, if her tone of voice said anything. Sam could understand now the woman's bitterness against archeology. In a way, it had stolen from her all that she held dear.

"It was a horrible death..." Sam prompted, hoping that she would add more details.

The woman wiped her eyes clean, smeared black mascara giving her a gaunt look. "Death comes to us all, Mr. AIA... my only regret was that I was out of town when it came for my husband. All I ever saw of what happened to him was the stain on our bed were he died and the graffiti on my wall."

Sam's head perked up. "Graffiti? A drawing?"

"You know how vandals are," the woman said, dismissing the whole thing altogether as she got to her feet. "A couple of words that didn't mean a thing. Now, if that is all..."

Closing the distance between the two of them, Sam fished a card from his pocket, a non-descript one with nothing but his phone number on it. "I won't bother you further, Ma'am. But if do remember anything else—"

Sam stopped himself and looked a moment at the broken piece of clay on the mantel; there was a scatter of fine grains inside the broken amphora. Unable to restrain himself, Sam touched it with the tip of his finger. Sand.

"Strange, isn't?" Mrs. Faerydae asked him. "No matter how much I clean that stupid thing, there's always sand around it. I have no idea where it's coming from..."

Sam looked at her. He could kiss her right now. "Ma'am... would you mind if I take some pictures of this? It's for the article."

She looked at the broken pieces for a long time, so long that Sam feared that she was going to say no. "Do whatever you want," she blurted out. "Brian cared more about that thing than about us anyway... it's only proper that its picture is the one featured in the article."

Sam stood, watching her go without so much as a goodbye. He wondered what it was like to live in the same house as something that she seemed to hate so deeply and not just simply toss it away. Right then, he could only be thankful that she never did.

:o:

Fireflies. Dean had actually been traipsing around the woods for hours chasing _mother-frigging_ fireflies.

If Sam ever found out, Dean would never hear the end of it.

He was tired, he was dirty and he was frustrated as hell. The only thing Dean wanted in life, at the moment, was a hot shower, a cold beer and some decent sleep.

His phone stirred on top of the car's dashboard just as Dean parked the Impala. Sam. Telling him that they were staying in room number six and reminding him that he was supposed to bring dinner.

Well... Fuck!

He'd completely forgotten about the food.

Not really in the mood to go back out and search for a place with take out, Dean got out and made his way to their room. If Sam was that hungry, he could go fetch the food himself.

Besides, they had more important things to do. Like catch that damn fairy before it killed someone else.

Sam opened the door before Dean could knock a second time. There was a gleam of excitement and a bubbly energy surrounding him that made Dean feel twice as old than what he really was.

"That a sugar rush or you just happy to see me?" Dean asked, flopping boneless on top of the nearest bed.

"I figured out what the Sandman is," Sam announced happily. "_And_ how to neutralize it!"

Dean raised an eyebrow. Sam sure seemed full of himself over something so basic. "Yeah, he's a fairy and we need to send its sandy ass back to fairyland."

"He's a Greek god that was trapped inside an ancient Greek amphora!" Sam said, talking all over Dean's statement.

As the silence filled the room, both brothers stared at one another, realizing that the words coming from the other were completely different from what they were expecting.

"What?" they said, once more at the same time.

Sam rolled his eyes, taking the lead before Dean could open his mouth again. "I thought about the fairy's theory, at first," he said turning the computer screen around so that Dean could see as well. "It is true that the Sandman is most commonly associated with fairies, but with the amount of salt that we had lying scattered in that room, there is no way _any_ type of fairy would have been able to do anything to us."

"Maybe this one can," Dean countered. It wasn't like there was an over-abundance of information on fairies.

Sam scrubbed the scruff on his face. He didn't look one bit convinced by Dean's argument. "There is another theory, more obscure, older, that says that Sandman is actually Morpheus—"

"The red-pill/blue-pill guy from the Matrix?" Dean offered, looking hopeful. "That dude was cool!"

Sam rolled his eyes. "The Greek god of dreams and sleep," he offered, knowing fully well that Dean knew exactly of whom he was talking about. His brother was a bigger geek about mythology than Sam could ever hope to be. "I talked to the first victim's family. The guy was an archeologist, brought this back with him from his last excavation," he said, handing his phone over.

Dean grabbed it and it play. Apparently, Sam had decided that taking pictures of the... whatever that broken vase was, wasn't enough and had filmed it from every possible angle. The short footage ended and Dean's eyes landed on the printed pictures on top of the table, all of them featuring the same two big pieces of broken clay that he'd seen in the phone. "Very Indiana Jones of him," he muttered, going back to the phone and playing it one more time. The inside of the pieces was red, like most clay, but the outer surface was painted white with black scribbling all over it. And there was something there, some sort of glow... "Aren't archeologists supposed to put these things in museums, instead of at home?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't think he was all that well seen in the archeology community… this, however, is not something you would want to put in a museum," he added, getting excited again.

"In the trash then?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "_This_ is a very old, very powerful, hex box."

It was Dean's turn to arch an eyebrow. "Not and X-Box fan, I'm more of a Nintendo kind of guy," he muttered, ignoring Sam's scowl as he play the footage one more time. From some angles, there seemed to be a faint yellow glow on the inside, making it look like it was made of gold rather than clay. Fairy-dust came to mind, even if Dean was pretty sure that there was no such thing.

"You see anything?" Sam asked, watching as Dean kept staring at the image.

Dean looked at him and paused. Could Sam see the glow too or was that a trick question? Looking at his brother face provided no answer, one way or the other. "Nope," he risked. "Just looking for the 'made in Taiwan' label."

Sam pried the phone from his hands. "Stop being an ass." He grabbed one of the pictured, a magnified print of some golden squiggle over black paint. "See these marks here?" he said, pointing to a specific point on the outside of amphora. "Took me awhile to find the correct translation online, but this is here says '_God_' and this…" he said, pointing to another chicken scratch further below, "I'm pretty sure says '_Capture_'."

Dean sat, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Okay… I'll buy the whole nonsense of that thing having been made to contain Morpheus," he said, infinitely happy for not having mentioned the decisively unnatural glow of the thing. To Sam, there was nothing but clay and old words on the thing and that was fine with him. "But what does that have to do with our case, other than you finding it at the vic's house?"

"Because," Sam rubbed his head, looking frustrated at his brother's incessant questioning of his reasoning. "Okay... we know that the doc lost his wife in a car accident, a year ago, right?" At Dean's nod, Sam went on. "And we know that the Sandman went after those who survived the crash before finishing off the doc himself."

"Who, for all we know, could've been the one controlling the thing before it turned on him and bit 'im in the ass," Dean countered.

Sam pursed his lips. "And I think the exact same the same thing happened to Brian Faerydae."

"Why?"

Sam told him about the writing on the wall. "I think the same words were left there, as some sort of... parting gift or something."

"Some gift," Dean muttered. "So... he was controlling the Sandman too?" he said, making his way to Sam's computer as he knew his brother would have proof there to back up his claim. "I mean, it kind makes sense and the guy does have a really conspicuous last name—"

"No," Sam said, shaking his head. "I mean, maybe... but what really matters is that there was a similar tragedy in Brian's life with a similar outcome. See these?"

Dean stared at the computer screen, watching as Sam opened page after page of police reports on a series of suicides dating two years back. "Jesus! These are all kids, Sam! I mean, teenagers tend to be a little bit heavy on the angst, but fuck!" he breathed out, forcing himself to look past the waste of so many young lives and looking at the details on the files. "They are also from all over the place... _and_ there is no mention of missing eyes or anything wonky."

"I know. However, all of them had something in common, other than the cause of death," Sam pointed out, zooming in on one of the reports.

"Says here asphyxiation, all of them," Dean read. "It's a common enough way to snuff one's life, Sam."

"Brian's teenage daughter died of meningitis, two years ago," Sam went on. "Her school was hosting a m-athlete nation-wide event when there was an outbreak and a bunch of kids were infected. She was the only one who died."

Dean looked at him, his brain working out what that had to do with everything else. And then it hit him. "The suicide kids... they were among the ones who survived."

Sam nodded. "Not all of the kids who survived the meningitis killed themselves, granted, but every single one who did had been at that event," he pointed. "I'm still not sure why the Sandman goes after some and not the others, but I don't think either of these guys was in control of the Sandman. It just... latches on to their loss," Sam said, the theory forming in his mind even as he spoke the words. "Somehow, this being is going after people who got what Faerydae's daughter and Zimm's wife could not... the chance to have a life."

"You're reaching," Dean concluded, sitting back down. "But yeah, I kind of agree with you that might be some kind of connection between the loses those two guys suffered and the victims that the Sandman picks –sick fuck that it is-," he pointed out, offering a white flag to his brother. "None of that, however, tells us that the Sandman is some ancient Greek god moonlighting as grief patrol. For all we know, those chicken scratches are their version of comic books."

Sam sighed, tracing the picture's patterns in the broken amphora. "Doesn't tell us that he's a fairy either."

"Fine," Dean said, throwing his hands in the air. "Let's ignore the fact that I can actually _see_ the bastard and, therefore, there's not much else _but_ a fairy that he can be... how do we catch him and know for sure?"

:o:

"Pass me another burger, will ya?"

The smell of raunchy fries and slightly burned meat was heavy inside the car, even though the windows were open all the way down.

A stake out, even after sundown, in the oppressive Louisiana heat, was the worst possible way that either of them could think of spending their night. However, inside the house across the street from the Impala, resided their best chance to get their hands on the Sandman before it killed somebody else. Sam just couldn't understand how Dean could possibly eat in the stifling heat.

Gambling on the chance that the Sandman's pattern remained the same, they knew that it was only a matter of time before the thing latched on to some other grieving soul, bitter about having lost someone in a tragedy of one.

Brian Faerydae had died on the same day as Zimm's wife. On a hunch, Sam had searched for group accidents that had happened on the same day the doc had bought the farm.

Locally, they couldn't find a single event. It had been Dean's idea to expand the search statewide.

The number of tragedies involving more than one person was staggeringly high. However, there had been only one with a single mortal victim and –surprise, surprise- it involved the husband of a local woman.

Freakish accident, really. The guy had worked for the Baton Rouge Zoo, in charge of the African animals feed and care. One of the black rhinos had gotten spooked over something or another, broken free of his habitat and charged the full crowd that had gathered to watch the large mammals feeding time. Frank Robbie had been too close to the animal when it had its freak out and had been trampled to death. Everybody else had gotten away with bruises, bumps and a deep aversion to Zoos for the foreseeable future.

The accident had happened in the off-season, during school year, so there hadn't been that many people around. Getting a list of names from the policemen who worked the case had been the easy part. Letting go of the names of people from outside of New Orleans was a bit more stress inducing.

Truth was, no matter how painful it was or morally wrong it tasted against their souls, Sam and Dean just couldn't workout a way to keep an eye on the twenty-something people who had been present at the accident, people from all over the state. They were working on a hunch, a flimsy one to Dean's view, and that was simply not enough for them to start calling every hunter they knew to keep an eye on potential victims from a potential monster that could, potentially, be after them.

Coming to a silent and mutually agreed decision, Sam and Dean had zeroed on the names of people that were from New Orleans. Given that the past five victims had been local, they were hoping that the Sandman had grown attached to the place.

They had come down to three names: Anderson, Jones and Carson, which, as far as their resources went, was still two names too much.

Sam couldn't see the Sandman, so standing watch over one of the other houses by himself would have been of little use unless he actually stood inside the potential victims' bed room and watch them be attacked.

As Sam, unlike the Sandman, didn't possess the ability to be invisible, they had settled for the next best thing. Planting bugs.

Association with Frank Devereaux had been more productive than either Winchester would ever admit. After the older man's murder, Sam and Dean had agreed that there was be no point in letting all of his paranoid-induced surveillance equipment go to waste. So, they had gotten themselves some new toys.

Planting the bugs inside all of three possible victim's houses had been easy. Cut someone's cable and the will gladly welcome inside their homes anyone dressed remotely as the right person to fix their problem.

Sam was working the audio, earplugs inconspicuously hidden behind his floppy hair and audio feed set to filter in through his computer. Dean's part was to drive from one house to the next and hope that, when the sounds of distress came, they would be near enough to help.

It wasn't perfect, it wasn't even reassuring, but with only one of them being able to see the invisible murderer, it was the best that they could do.

A couple of hours into their rotating surveillance, Dean had switched from beer to coffee. Neither of them had gotten much sleep over the last couple of days and, chasing after a monster that attacked people in their sleep, neither of them was much inclined to have any.

"What exactly is the plan if –when- we get anything on these mics?" Sam couldn't help but ask. It wasn't like the last time they had confronted the thing it had gone terribly well for them. In fact, his head still hurt from how_ not _well it had gone.

Dean took a bite off his burger, chewing his options along with the meat.

"Throwing salt at it can't be our only option," Sam reminded him. Sure, he hadn't been able to convince Dean that this was a Greek god they were dealing with, but he wasn't about to go face it under the illusion that it was a fairy either.

"You said it went away when you threw holy water at it, right?"

Sam was about to point out that they couldn't bet their lives on something that he wasn't sure how it worked or even if he could reproduce exactly, when one of his feeds chirped to life.

Dean saw the tension in his brother's pose and threw the rest of the burger into the backseat as he started the car. "Tell me it's this one..." he whispered, more to himself than to anyone else, as he looked at the house right in front of them. All the lights had gone out a couple of hours before and everything was deadly quiet.

"No such luck," Sam replied. "It's number two, the Jones' place. Step on it!"

:o:

They were going to arrive too late. Dean had the most absolute certainty about that. Even driving as fast as the Impala could go, even though the house was relatively close to the one they'd been, they would not be there in time to save anyone.

The Impala screeched to a stop, Sam racing towards the house even before the tires had stopped rolling. Dean paused only long enough to pull the keys from the ignition and raced after his brother.

A small part of his brain was supplying him in great detail the many reasons why this whole thing was a bad idea.

They had no plan of attack other than _attack_.

They had no weapons that could work on this thing other than salt and, _maybe_, holy water.

They had no visual on the thing, other than what Dean could see.

And yet, somewhere inside that house, there was a person who would not see the light of the next day if Dean and Sam didn't do something and that was reason enough to jump into it head first.

Sam hadn't bothered to pick the lock, just lifted his foot and kicked the door in as he went. Big house like that, front lawn carefully primed and lined with delicate flowerbeds, the thing was bound to be rigged with an alarm system, something that the Winchesters were perfectly aware of. Somewhere out there a siren was blaring, cutting down the time they had even shorter.

"Windy," Sam whispered as soon as Dean joined him inside the house.

It was the very thing that had alerted him in the first place, the only give away that the Sandman seemed to be unable to control. Or maybe it just didn't care that people knew it was there. It carried the furious wind with it.

In the back of his mind, in that place where Dean gathered all the details that his eyes picked but he couldn't afford to pay attention at the time, he saw a lobby that looked like the storage place of some old movie studio. Two large statues of giant heads lined the door, silent stone guardians that seemed plucked right out from Easter Island. Further ahead, there were Chinese warriors in their stone armors; stern faces looking disapprovingly at the two intruders. If Dean was a kid with a house of his own, that was exactly as he would've decorated it too. Maybe just replace the soldiers for a more bustier and beautiful Asian version.

_Upstairs_, Dean motioned silently.

The house was silent except for the weird wind whistling around them, but both knew that that didn't mean a thing.

Sam took point, his long legs eating the steps two at a time. He waited for Dean when he reached the top, two fingers pointing to the right while he took the left.

Dean quickly searched the two rooms on his side. A study and a guest room, both empty, which meant…

"In here," Sam yelled a few seconds later.

Dean burst through the door of the last bedroom on the left, his eyes taking in the full clusterfuck they'd gotten themselves in.

Huddled against the board of the large bed was a man, Tobias Jones, arms crossed over bent legs, face turning frantically one way and the other, trying to make sense of what was happening around him. His eyes, Dean realized with a pang of failure, were gone.

Sam, the idiot that he was, was standing in front of the terrified man, casting spurts of holy water from the flask in his hand.

"The holy water isn't working," Sam yelled above the wind, a touch of fear in his voice as he tossed the empty flask away. It wasn't for himself, Dean knew that all too well, but for the poor bastard that they'd been too late to see unscathed and who would die if they did nothing. "Can you see it?"

Dean could see it perfectly fine. The Sandman was standing mostly in the corner away from the door, twirling mess of black sand, seemingly studying Sam's actions. It seemed... amused. He could see it as the swirling being made his way towards Sam and Jones, tendrils of sand, like impossibly long arms, extending to touch them both.

"Hey, you with the grainy face!" Dean called out, stepping in front of the Sandman; the sword was in his hand without even a conscious thought. "Has anyone ever told you that you're truly butt-ugly?"

It didn't actually have a face, not one that Dean could make out other than two black holes that seemed to serve as its eyes, but he could swear that it looked surprised. It couldn't be because of the sword; Dean knew that because he had fought it before and it had been useless. Could it be... "Yeah, that's it, shit-for-brains," he went on, "I can see your fugly face!"

A part of Dean was pulsing with barely contained energy, waiting for the moment when the spell would brake and the Sandman attacked; the other part of his was deeply satisfied that Sam had taken the hint and was rushing past the momentary stunned monster and out of the room with Jones in tow.

The moment the terrified victim left the room, the spell was broken. A blood-curding howl ripped across the house, answered tenfold by the swirling wind.

Dean swung the sword forward, trying to get the monster's attention back to him, but there was no point. The blood thirst was stronger as it chased after Sam and its intended victim. "Sam!"

The single word was all Sam needed to know that trouble was coming his way.

Dean chased after the Sandman, watching in horror as the swirling figure grew to twice its size, a giant hand forming in the air. Like something out of Looney Tunes, Dean watched as the huge hand closed into a fist and punched Sam and Jones, sending both of them rolling down the stairs. "SAM!"

His shout turned Sandman's attention back to Dean, even if for a split second, and the hunter took full advantage. "You fucker!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, the sharp wind stealing his breath away. "Why don't you sit your butt down," he said, grabbing a hand full of salt from his pocket, "... and count me this?"

Tossing the grains of salt into the madness of flying sand felt like spitting against a storm but Dean knew that wouldn't be a problem for a fairy.

For a split second, Dean was sure that this would all end well. He saw the Sandman pause in its attack, saw the owner of the house get up from where he'd fallen and make a blind dash for the front door, he saw Sam sit up and look up at him.

For a split second, Dean could almost taste victory and imagine that big monster brought to its knees, scooping down and counting grains of salt off the floor like any other fairy. He could imagine himself running down the stairs and brushing the dust off Sam's clothes, scolding him for risking his life needlessly. He imagine getting back to the motel room, proudly containing himself for not rubbing in too hard that he had been right all along.

The second splinted, time started ticking again and with it reality came crashing in. The Sandman wasn't scooping down; it couldn't care less if Dean had thrown salt or confetti at him.

He'd been wrong.

The laughter that carried in the wind was the most chilling thing Dean had ever witnessed in his life, but all he could hear was his own voice, reminding him. He's been utterly and completely wrong.

The front door banged closed in the wake of Jones' escape. It might as well have been the chime of a boxing-bell, calling fighters for round two. The Sandman charged.

Dean was still kicking himself bloody for being wrong when the sound started. A grave, baritone's sound that seemed to shake the whole house along with his insides. His eyes searched for the source, a million scenarios running through his mind, from heart-quake to airplane flying too low. Instead, he saw the big statues shaking and knew instinctively what was about to happen.

The first of the big statues started tumbling forward like an ancient tree toppling over. And then the next, and the next, and the next, a sickly domino fall that sent the very last piece straight on top of—"SAM!"

Dean knew that he couldn't have possibly heard the sound of bone breaking over the howl of wind, his own shout and the clashing of stone against the stone as every single statue turned into crumbling pieces. And yet, in between the pained howl that Sam was powerless to contain and the sickly odd angle of his right leg, Dean was sure he had heard his brother's bone breaking.

"Don't move, Sam," Dean yelled over the ruckus all around them, "I'm coming to you!"

In all honesty, Dean knew his words were pointless, only a feeble attempt to offer some reassurance to his brother... or to himself. He wasn't exactly sure on which of the them the words were more of a waste: Sam, who couldn't move even he wasn't trapped under half a ton of stone statue with a broken leg, or Dean, who was pretty sure this was it for the Winchester brothers but would not abandon Sam to his fate come hell or high water.

The Sandman laughed, a throaty sound that made Dean think of wind running through wells and deep underground caves as he flew down the stairs to reach Sam.

Suddenly, the next twenty steps ahead of him crumbled into dust –sand, always the fucking sand- leaving nothing but a ten feet drop in his path. Dean threw all of his weight down and backwards in the last moment, the tips of his boots flirting with the edge of the drop even as his ass collided with the steps beneath him. "Fuck!"

"Dean!" Sam called from below, his voice laced with pain. "You okay?"

Dean could've laughed. They were both so far from okay that okay was practically a foreigner country at that point. "I'm good," he called out, even as he could see the swirling sandy winds closing in on him. _Good_, in the sense that he was glad the Sandman had decided to finish him off before Sam. "Open to suggestions over here!"

Sam remained silent, except for the grunts of pain that he couldn't quite hide. The damn fool was probably trying to drag himself from underneath the statue to come to Dean's aid.

Dean looked around frantically, for once glad for the ever present need that monsters seemed to have to gloat and act overly dramatically when they were sure that victory was theirs. If this bastard was planning on starting some half-assed, boring monologue about... its mommy, or something, Dean was going to—

His eyes landed on the ceiling. There was a series of small white, glass bulbs scattered at regular intervals. Sam had said that the holy water had failed, but what if it wasn't the 'holy' part that was important? The old Greek jar thingy that had been broken had been found at the bottom of the ocean, if Dean remembered right. Not holy water, salt water.

Maybe that was why it had worked before, back in their room, the combination between water and all the salt that they had laying around. Maybe...

With his attention split between finding a solution and keeping an eye on the Sandman, Dean failed to see when the thing made a lunge for him. The sword, helpless as it was against a monster made of air and dirt, was out even before Dean had registered the movement. It did nothing to stop the wall of sand that collided with his face, stealing his breath away.

"S-Sam," he coughed through the grain. He couldn't see a thing and his eyes felt like they were on fire. "Sa… light it up."

To his ears, his own voice seemed too gruff and faint to have reached Sam one floor below. And even if it did, Dean hoped that his brother trusted him enough to bet their lives on Dean's hunch, particularly after he had been so spectacularly wrong about the Sandman's origins. He threw more salt at it, to make sure that there was enough of it lying around… just in case.

Dean scrubbed at his eyes desperately, his breath becoming short and labored as his mouth filled with sand faster than he could spit it out. The Sandman was standing right in front of him, Dean could feel it, he _knew_ it from the shimmering colors that assaulted his eyes whenever he looked in that particular direction. But for the life of him, Dean couldn't understand why the monster didn't just finish the job while both hunters were vulnerable.

The stabbing pain that assaulted him as the sand in his eyes scrapped his eyeballs raw answered Dean's question in flying colors. Suddenly, it was perfectly clear why the victims were all found without eyes and with their mouths sewed shut; suddenly Dean knew exactly what the Sandman's next move would be.

Ignoring the urge to scrape his eyes out and rid them of the sand inside, Dean used his hands to clean the sand from his mouth. Already he could feel tendrils of line forming across his lips, threatening to seal his mouth shut with all that sand inside.

That was how the others had died, that was why their mouths had been shut. The bastard filled them with sand and just waited while they choked and clawed their eyes out.

His fingers weren't working properly, Dean realized. The world was growing fuzzier at the edges and his lungs were starting to burn as bad as his eyes. There was more sand coming in than what he could fight and already the pressure was becoming more than he could handle. Dean clawed at his face, biting his lips bloody. He had survived Hell; he had survived Purgatory; he damn well was going to survive this. He just needed a little bit of air...

Dean barely registered the sirens blaring outside as the police arrived; he barely registered when water started raining down on him, blessed relief to his burning eyes.

The howl of pain and frustration that replaced the Sandman's sickly laughter was the only indication that Dean had that they would live to fight another round. As darkness claimed him, Dean wondered in what shape he and Sam would be to fight it.


	4. Chapter 3

PART III

Sam woke up to a strange and contradicting notion of feeling light as a feather and so strong and invincible that he could take on a brick wall and win. It took him all of a second to figure out that he was on drugs. The good kind, the kind that made the pain feel like it belonged to someone else entirely.

The heavy-duty drugs explained the annoying beep beeping noise that had been sound-tracking his existence ever since Sam had opened his eyes. Hospital.

Sam forced his sluggish brain to come up with the events that had led him to be floating in happy juice in a hospital bed, and, what was scarier, why Dean wasn't bitching to him from a chair next to him.

"Mr.? You awake, sir?"

Sam blinked, confused as to why there was a voice talking to him when there was no one around. His unfocused eyes landed on the shape at the foot of the bed, a tiny woman with shoulder-length gray hair.

The grunt that left his lips must've sound like an answer to the woman because she went on. "I realize that you're still a bit spacey from the pain relief medication we've got you on, but it's paramount that you give us any and all details about your health or any previous condition that we should be aware of before proceeding with your treatment. Also, a na—"

"W-who are you?" Sam cut through her speech, dizzy from the amount of words being hurled at him. God! His mouth felt like a dry rock had been stored in there for the past month.

The basic question seemed to give her pause. "I'm Dr. Emily Barks," she said slowly, "we already met in the ER, don't you remember? I set your leg, which, by the way, should heal nicely if you stay off of it for the next six weeks or so..."

Sam stared at her before looking at bottom half of his body. There was a chunky, white cast covering his right one from knee to foot. How had he missed that?

"You weren't carrying any ID when the paramedics brought you in," she went on, moving to his right side. "Can you tell us your name? John Doe doesn't really suite you."

The cogs in Sam's brain were starting to turn, protesting every step of the way. There was something big and terrible waiting for Sam at the end of that turn of thought, but he couldn't stop himself from pushing.

The first thing he remembered was the pain. The inescapable and all-involving agony that arrived seconds after he heard his bone snapping and Dean screaming his name. Dean! "Where's my brother?" Sam blurted out, sitting on the bed like a loose spring.

The woman looked at him, this time more focused on his features rather than his medical condition. "Which one is your brother? Tobias Jones or the other John Doe we found?"

Sam forced his brain to think rationally, which was a Herculean effort given that every cell inside him kept screaming to find out what had happened to Dean. But they had been caught inside the house of man who, for all Sam knew, could've died from the wounds they had not been able to prevent. It would not be productive for the Winchesters future for them to be arrested for murder.

Then again, if Jones had managed to survive, Sam's lie about who he was would last a pathetically short life. "The other John Doe, " he confessed.

The woman gave him a look over the top of black-rimmed glasses. "John and John too," she muttered. "You know what? If what I hear is true, you and your brother can keep your secret identities all you want. After all, superheroes are entitled to some anonymity," she added with a playful smile.

Sam's confusion must have reached his face because her expression went from playful to understanding. "The only reason why you and your brother aren't currently cuffed to your beds and have a police officer standing guard is because Mr. Jones told everyone that two men came to his aid when _something_ attacked him inside his home. He claims, for all who want to hear it, that the two of you saved his life." She paused, giving him another look, waiting for him to add something, anything. "I suppose the details of what exactly attacked him and made his eyes simply vanish in thin air are as mysterious as your name, hum?"

Sam swallowed the anxiety in his chest and looked up at her. "Can I see my brother?" he asked instead, ignoring her curiosity.

"I'll send an aid with a wheel chair," she replied tiredly, unable to hide the frustration from her voice.

Sam wasn't sure he could even answer her if he wanted to. The correct order of events was kind of fuzzy after that statue fell on top of him. He remembered Dean trying to come down the stairs, he remembered the dissolving steps and his brother almost falling over and...

Dean had said something about lighting things up and Sam had barely paused to consider if his brother meant for them to burn the house with them and –hopefully- the Sandman inside or if he'd meant using the house's fire suppressing system to soak the Sandman... even though water hadn't worked before and there was no reason for Sam to believe it would work then.

No. After working side by side with Dean for so many years, Sam had just flipped his lighter on and set the carpet on fire.

Pushing his drugged brain into trying to figure out why water had worked against the Sandman the first and last time but not the second, was giving Sam a vicious headache. He was going in circles, like a hamster on steroids, trying to make that little wheel reach the speed of light.

The soft sound of rubber wheels on linoleum pulled Sam away from his frustrating line of thought. An aid, a tall middle age man with a big mustache, steered a wheelchair into the room, parking it next to Sam's bed.

"Morning, Mr. Doe," he said cheerfully. "My name is James and I'll be your driver for the next hour."

:o:

James, designated driver that he was, pushed Sam's chair –despite Sam's protests- from the Orthopedic level to the elevator at the end of the hall. Dean –the other Mr. Doe, as everyone seemed to refer when talking about them- was two levels down, in at the Ophthalmology department.

Sam had frowned in confusion when James had announced their destination. He was pretty sure that he had told his doctor that his brother was the other person found at the house without an ID, not Mr. Jones. Sam painfully remembered that they had arrived too late to save the man's eyes, so it made all the sense in the world for _him_ to be in ophthalmology... not Dean.

Not Dean.

By the time James turned the chair to enter the third room on the right, Sam was sweating and struggling to control his racing heart. They _knew_ the Sandman attacked people's eyes, they'd _seen_ how the man they'd saved had been... how could they have been so foolish to think that they would be immune to such attack?

The window blinds were open, casting a soft glow inside the room that made everything look washed out, including the single patient occupying the place.

Dean was lying in the bed, white gauze wrapped around his head, completely covering his eyes and half his face. He turned to the door as their arrival disturbed the silence of the room. The skin around his mouth looked red and abraded, like someone had tried to scrub it raw and his lips looked painfully dry.

"Who's there?" Dean whispered, voice raspier than usual. "Come on, s' not funny to mess with the blind guy."

"I'll leave you two alone," James said softly over Sam's sharp intake of air.

"Sammy, is that you?"

Sam gulped down the bile amassing in his throat, sweaty palms slipping off the handrails as he pushed the wheelchair closer to the bed. "Yeah, Dean, it's me," he voiced, hating how fragile and broken his voice sounded.

"Jesus, man, I was just pulling your leg with the whole blind thing! No need to sound like I'm dying," Dean let out, sitting up straighter. "It's not nearly as bad as it looks, just a scratched cornea or whatever they called it," he went on, looking straight at him like the cover over his eyes was made of bubble wrapper rather than clothe. "Hey, how're _you_ doing? They told me you had a broken leg but that it was healing fine. You in any pain? Did they put you in a cast? Man, those things itch like a bitch—"

Nervous-Dean tended to talk a mile an hour, a fact that Sam had never mentioned to him, afraid that Dean would stop doing it entirely and Sam would lose one of the small gives he had into the workings of his brother's mind. However, he had sounded so confident and relaxed that for a few seconds Sam believed that this was just the worst prank ever. "W-what?"

"Doc said that your cast can come off in about a month and a half and these," Dean said, pointing to his gauze-covered face, "in about a week and that my eyes should be pretty much back to normal then."

Sam closed his eyes, selfishly happy that Dean couldn't read his expression right then. "'_Should_'? '_Pretty much'_? Was your doctor trying to guess the lottery numbers or are you editing his words?"

Dean frowned, or at least Sam thought he did, from the way his bandages wrinkled at the edges. "Are you pissed? You sound pissed..."

Sam couldn't help the bitter laughter that came out of his lips. "I guess the drugs they're giving you are better than mine." He paused, thinking back at what Dean had said and staring at his cast-covered leg. "'_Pulling my leg'_?! Seriously?"

Dean just smirked, obviously very happy at his terrible pun. He pulled his bed covers away and sat up. "Well, I hope you're not high enough that you wont find us the exit door, because we're out of here."

Sam just sat there, staring at his brother until he remembered that Dean had no way of knowing that he was doing the staring thing. "W-what?"

Dean let his head fall forward, turning it from side to side. "God, you are high," he concluded from Sam's disjointed speech. "Never mind... we'll find our way around that. Let's go!"

Sam had the presence of mind enough to make a grab for Dean's arm as he got to his feet and swayed to the side. "Sit down, you fool. Not picking you up if you fall on your ass," he hissed. "Where exactly do you think we're going with a bum leg and with you bl—"

Sam stopped himself from actually saying the words. Beneath his fingers, he could feel Dean's muscles tensing up.

"It's temporary, Sam," Dean hissed back. "Much like our current grace period of no one questions asked. Do you wanna stick around until someone in charge of the money in this place decides to take matters in hand and comes demanding proper IDs from the two of us?"

Sam's grip on Dean's arm relaxed. He had a point. One that didn't exactly denied Sam's point, but that surely was more pressing in urgency. "Can you even stand without falling down?"

Dean pulled his arm away with more force than necessary. "Yeah, you idiot," he muttered. "You just went all Florence Nightingale on my ass before I could get my bearings, that's all."

In a couple of hours, Sam would be wondering why the hell no one stopped them. More than that, he will be downright amazed that they managed to get to the front door at all.

He could only imagine the sight that the two of them presented in those hospital halls, Sam with his leg stretched out ahead of his chair, being pushed forward by a man with his eyes covered, while whispering directions and cringing in fear at every near miss with the walls that Dean put them through.

Right then, in the moment, the only thing that Sam could focus was on not banging his broken leg against anything more solid than a few ferns and making it to the exit.

It was only when they left the cab that had taken them back to their motel room that Sam felt like he could breath again. "What now?"

Dean turned his half mummified face to him, "Now we go put a Sandman down."

Sam laughed so hard at something that was so absolutely not amusing that he was damn sure that he was still high on drugs. He just hopped Dean was too.

:o:

They made quite the pair as they tramped noisily into yet another motel room; Dean, eyes swathed in enough gauze to clothe to build a tent, and Sam hobbling on crutches, his leg wrapped in a shiny white cast. Exhausted, and neither of them in any shape to drive, they had taken a cab back to the Impala. Each had a twenty-dollar bill sewed into the seams of their coasts exactly for situations like that. It came in handy more often than it should.

It was nothing short of a miracle that the car hadn't been towed into some police impound. It stood there even now; still parked in the same place they had left it the previous night, looking like a lost puppy waiting for her owners to return.

They rolled it towards the nearest motel and prayed to any higher power listening that no one called the cops on them as they booked a room looking like two extras from a Thriller remake.

Sam collapsed on the bed as soon as the door was open; Dean felt the air shift around him, heard the bed creek. Sam would be out for the count for at least a couple more hours. Good. Now he needed to escape…

"I'm gonna hit the shower; wash this hospital stench off me," he rasped out loud to a, hopefully, already asleep Sam. He moved hesitantly forward, measuring his steps, hands slightly raised. Distance, he needed distance and to- to hide.

"Wai- wait," he heard Sam start over the groaning of the bed. The metal of his crutches clanked and Dean knew he was struggling to get up. "Just hang on a sec. I'll help you find it."

"No," Dean snarled, his back stiff and head turned in the direction of Sam's voice. "Don't need a guide dog, Sam."

The oppressing and complete silence coming from the spot where Sam was told Dean what he was already well aware of. He was being an ass. "Just... just tell me where to go," he offered as a peace token. "For eighteen bucks a night, the room can't be all that big, can it?"

The room was still quiet, paused on Sam's reaction. A short intake of air followed by a long exhale. Sam probably counting to ten in his head.

"Fine," Sam said after a moment. He sounded a little hurt but Dean couldn't focus on that; all that mattered was that he'd capitulated. _Thank God._ "Turn slight left and you'll be facing the center of the room. Bathroom's at ten o'clock."

Dean tiptoed his way ahead, expecting at any second to bang his foot against a bed or walk right into a table. The room seemed to be closing in on him and he had to fight the amounting pressure surrounding him to suck in some oxygen.

Finally, his extended arm hit something. He felt around with his fingers. A door. Dean stepped quickly inside and closed the bathroom door behind himself.

Safe from Sam's prying gaze, Dean pressed his back to the door and slid down until his ass collided with the cold tile floor. No matter how large the gulps of air he took, it wasn't nearly enough to feed his starving lungs.

Deep inside, he knew he was having another panic attack, but he couldn't stop it. Most important of all, he couldn't let Sam hear him.

It wasn't even the fact that his whole world was black and he couldn't see a thing; it was what he was seeing in that darkness that was scaring the shit out of Dean.

There, he had said, even if it was just in some demented internal monologue where he kept narrating the various ways in which his life was fucked up.

Scared wasn't even the right word, no. Dean Winchester was terrified. Terrified because some monster had attacked him, screwed with his eyes _but_, even currently wrapped in enough gauze to cover a tall mummy and with an entire flock of medical doctors assuring him that there was an eighty percent chance he might get his sight back, Dean was still _seeing_ things. Now. When he should be seeing nothing but the boring inside of his eyelids.

No, he wasn't seeing _things_; he was _seeing_ them. People and... other things.

The first time he had noticed it, _truly_ notice it, was when he'd first woke up at the hospital, surrounded by a group of doctors and their students.

It was unsettling, and if he were ever to meet them again in the middle of the street, Dean would not recognize a single one of them, yet at the hospital, in that room, he could see enough details about each person surrounding him to pinpoint exactly where each stood.

He had known that the doctor closest to him was coming down with something, because everywhere he moved, a slightly yellow tinge followed him; he knew that the one on his right was engage to be married because he was surrounded in violet; he could tell that the one closest to the door was pregnant with a boy because she exuded baby blue like it was a rare perfume.

It was disorientating, it was nauseating and it was all Dean could do to not run out screaming from that room as soon as he realized that he was not tripping on drugs.

Thinking back, Dean knew he shouldn't have been surprised at what he had been seeing. In fact, he had seen it before. He had just been so deep in denial that he had actually refused to see it.

He had seen it with the coroner, he had seen it at Mrs. Figgs place, he had even seen it every single time they'd faced the Sandman. And that was just the last couple of days. In all honesty, he had been seeing it for months now.

Dean was nothing if not the master of denial.

He'd written it off at the time as a lack of sleep, or perhaps an after effect of some blow to the head; he had even figured it to be a product of mixing too much alcohol and sleeping pills.

The genesis of the problem, Dean was forced to recognize it now, was not as external as he wished. Blows, booze and drugs were as much the culprits of what he had been seeing as his previous encounter with fairies was to blame for the fact that he could see a monster that no one was supposed to see.

Dean could _see_ things, even without using his eyes. It was just one more aspect of the ways the tattoo had fucked up his life.

Back at the hospital, Dean had recognized Sam the second he'd been wheeled into the room. His baby brother had a dark golden color about him that made Dean think about summer days and driving along the road watching the sun racing to set ahead of them.

Sam was worried sick. That much was easy to see even without a pair of functioning eyes, but Dean couldn't find the words to reassure his brother. What was he going to say, anyhow? 'Hey, there's a 20% chance my eyes are screwed for life, but not to worry! I can see frigging lights around people'?

So, Dean had swallowed his fears and his panic and he had bullied Sam out of that hospital because, truly, they needed to get out of there.

The first ghost he saw on the corridor nearly sent him and Sam straight into a cluster of chairs. Or so Sam yelled at him when his leg collided with one.

It made sense that a place like a hospital would have its fair share of lost souls. No, what _had_ scared the shit out of Dean was that he hadn't expected the violent neon green light fest that they exuded. After struggling to grow accustomed to the somewhat faded lights of the living, the harsh coloring of the dead had felt like an assault on his retinas.

It was a relief when he and his brother had finally made it out and got inside a cab to take them away.

Feeling more in control and less shaky, Dean finally managed to drag himself to his feet and feel his way to the shower stall. He was counting on Sam still being too hopped out on painkillers to notice the silent bathroom but even so, Dean turned the shower on.

Lulled by the falling water and the steam that turned the air solid and present, Dean slipped out of his clothes, careful to keep himself anchored by pressing one shoulder to the nearby wall.

Under the warm spray of water, he ran his fingers through his wet hair, feeling his way around the soaked bandage. He yanked it away in fury and toss it on the floor, feeling slightly vindicated when it landed with a pathetically wet flop. For a second, Dean considered pissing on everything the doctors had said and just open his eyes.

He ducked his head down, punching the slick wall with more force than necessary. This was a good thing, he tried to convince himself. The fact that he was turning into an even bigger freak was a good thing. How else would a guy with a bum leg and a poor Ray Charles imitation could stand any chance of going up against the Sandman for round... three, was it?

Because there was no doubt in Dean's mind that they could not afford to wait until he and Sam were in fighting condition to go back after the Sandman. Robbed of its victim the previous night, Dean knew that the thing would go back at it that very evening.

They had no time to waste. And that included Dean's self-indulgent freak out.

Putting his game face back on, Dean turned the shower off and came to an annoying realization; "Forgot some damn clothes," he announced to the room in general. The room ignored him.

Or not. "You okay in there?" Sam's concern floated from outside, thick as molasses.

"Yeah," Dean answered, his voice like gravel. He fumbled around for some towels, knocking a whole stack of them to the floor. "Shit!" he whispered, wrapping one around his head, careful to cover his eyes as well, and another around his waist. "Coming."

How long had he been in there anyway? The sudden urge to look at his watch and find out took him by surprise and Dean gulped down a surge of bile. His building freakiness might have been handy for fighting monsters –God, he was like a damn Daredevil now- but the loss of his sight left him helpless and clueless for everything else. Taking a careful and long breath, Dean opened the door.

Now, to which side was the fucking beds again?

"Three steps, straight forward," Sam's tired voice answered, even though Dean was pretty sure he had not voiced his question. "There's a pack of clean gauze on top of the covers."

Dean gave him a silent nod, a bigger thank you than he could possible voice at that point. "So, the Sandman is actually Morpheus, the Greek not-guy-from-the-'Matrix'," Dean said as he sat heavily, feeling tired to his bones. His fingers worked nimbly as he replaced the towel for some proper bandages. "How do we end him?"

The sound of fingers striking a keyboard furiously came from the same place as Dean saw Sam's glowy colors. "We need to go back to the Faerydae's house," Sam simply said.

"The broken vase thing," Dean guessed.

"The broken amphora, yes," Sam corrected. "Salt water seems to be the answer to weakening Sandman, but once that's done, we'll need something to contain it. My guess is that that amphora was made specifically for that purpose."

"You think the widow will just give it to you?"

The typing stopped. Dean could feel Sam's eyes roaming over him. He stopped himself from staring right back at his brother.

"I think the safest bet is to just steal it," Sam eventually said.

:o:

There had been a time, not that long ago, when Sam and Dean could've called for reinforcements to help them out. Bobby had been their first choice of a third partner, more of a member of the family than just another hunter. The Leviathan, however, had made sure that such option was forever removed from their lives.

Garth wasn't so bad as a helping hand. As a hunter, he defied the odds of survival with every monster he faced and in all honesty, Dean had never met someone less equipped to even _be_ a hunter, but he had to admit that the peculiar man had grown on him to the point of actual friendship. Unfortunately, Garth was on the other side of the country, hunting down a pair of banshees.

Castiel would've been perfect to just pop into the widow's house and pop out carrying what they needed. The angel, however, was still stuck in Purgatory and there wasn't much Dean could do about it besides worrying about him and feeling guilty.

That left the Winchesters to do their petty theft on their own, even though Sam with his broken leg was about as lame as a thief could be and Dean without his eyes was just a joke's punch line waiting to happen.

As it had been all of their lives, the Winchesters just carried on and manage to find a way to make their disadvantages work in favor of their purpose.

As they couldn't afford to wait and see if Mrs. Faerydae would leave the house of her own volition, they decided to play the 'man in distress' card, a Winchester's specialty.

Thinking back, it had been a while since they'd last used it. In fact, Dean realized with a pang of grief, their father had still been with them when they'd last used it, against that nest of vampires who'd stolen the Colt.

Dean rang the bell and put on his most miserable face. Given that half of it was covered in white bandages, it wasn't all that hard.

"Can I help you?" a feminine voice called from the inside.

Dean could bet that she was holding a phone in her hand, 911 on speed dial in case this was some ruse to rob her, which, in a way, was exactly what it was. Just as long as it wasn't a gun, Dean was cool.

"Sorry to bother you, ma'm," Dean said to the closed door. "I just wanted to ask what street we're on."

"Common Street," the woman answered. "Are you lost?"

Dean almost smiled at the easy cue. "No, ma'm. It's just that..." he paused for effect, letting the slump of his shoulders speak for him. "Thank you, ma'm."

"Wait," the woman called back, the door still between the two of them. "There's plenty of people on the street that you could've asked that. You didn't come knocking on my door just to ask for directions, did you?"

Dean let out an embarrassed smile, knowing that Mrs. Faerydae would be watching him closely through the peephole. "It was the lilac smell," he 'confessed', stealing one more deep breath of the sweet perfume. It was common enough flower around that neighborhood; it would do fine for what he needed. "My sister has the same flowers in her yard. I thought I was in the right place, that's why I rang the bell" Dean explained, turning to leave. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding."

He didn't even have to try that hard when his feet fumbled with the step and he almost lost his balance.

"Wait," the woman said again, her voice this time followed by the unlocking of several b bolts on the door.

Dean heard the heels of her shoes take two steps in his direction before stopping. Turning in her direction, Dean found himself facing a beautiful violet color.

"Where does your sister live?"

"The cab driver was supposed to take me to her place on Gravier Street... we drove around for a long time and he brought me here instead. I think he was just looking for some easy cash," Dean said, putting the right amount of awkwardness and embarrassment in his words. "I'll just give her a call at work and ask her to pick me up."

There was a moment of silence from where the widow stood still next to him. Although Dean could not see the battle of emotions running through the woman's face, he could imagine it.

"Nonsense," she said, finally coming to a decision. There was a clattering of keys as she locked the door behind her. "Gravier Street is just around the corner. I'll take you there myself."

When she offered her arm to guide him through the streets, Dean almost felt bad for deceiving her like that.

:o:

"Crap!" Sam let for the fifth time in the last ten minutes. "Damn tiny, crappy piece, motherfuc—"

"Now I know why you flunked arts and crafts," Dean snickered from his station, leaning against the head of the bed. The slide of blade against the whetstone punctuated the intentional pause before he added, "you suck at it."

Sam gave him a murderous look, completely useless, he knew, as Dean's eyes were still covered. A pity, really, because the look had related very accurately how much Sam would like to scalp his annoying brother right then.

He wasn't even going to mention –again- how totally wrong it was for Dean to be sharpening knives that were already sharp as needles when he couldn't actually see the blades or the whetstone. Instead, Sam returned his focus to the tiny pieces of clay he was trying to put back together. _Trying_ being the operative word.

Fortunately for them, the amphora had been broken into two major pieces. It was the tiny fragments that had fallen from the outside, ruining the pattern of scribblings covering the thing, that Sam was struggling with. It was like putting together the most complicated puzzle ever without the benefit of knowing what the thing was supposed to look like in the first place. To say that Sam was kind of frustrated was akin to say that the Universe was kind of big.

And if he got one single piece in the wrong place... well, Sam doubted that he or his brother would survive their encounter with the Sandman to try a second time. The amphora had to perform as it was supposed –as they hopped it would- or they were pretty much screwed.

"You really think Morpheus would hit again in the same place?" Sam asked, meticulously spreading superglue on one side of a thin piece. "There were more people present the day of the accident. What if it picks any of the others?"

The whetting sound stopped for a second and Dean looked directly at him. It made Sam's fine hairs stand at attention whenever he did that, because Sam knew for a certainty that Dean was, for all intents and purposes, blind until those bandages came off.

But still... Dean wasn't acting as someone temporary disabled; he wasn't acting like the loss of such an important sense affected him at all, other than some cussing whenever he bumped against some crap Sam had left in the middle of the floor. Point in case: Dean wasn't just looking in the general direction from where Sam's voice came; he was _looking_ straight at him.

"It will come back to finish what it started," Dean said with as much certainty as someone pointing out that the sun will rise and set every single day. "Ancient gods are pissy like that."

"Jones is still in the hospital," Sam pointed out, even though he knew Dean was fully aware of that fact. "How are we gonna trick it into thinking it actually has someone to attack?"

Dean resumed the steady rhythm of sliding the knife's blade right from left, over and over. "You know how."

Sam's sighted. His leg throbbed in response to the pang in his heart. Yeah, he knew exactly how they could fool the Sandman into thinking there was someone there for it to attack. Didn't mean Sam liked it one bit. "Flip a coin?" he asked, dry humor that fell flat in the short distance separating them.

Truth was, either side of the coin was crappy. The one sleeping on the bed risked waking up dead, metaphorically speaking, and the one awake would have to face the Sandman alone, even if for a short span of time.

"I'm the one who can see it," Dean pointed out.

"That was before," Sam said, focused on placing the last piece of the puzzle and not even bothering to look up to call Dean's bullshit. "We'll just have to fi—"

"Nothing's changed."

Had their last name been Smith, Wesson or even a different branch of Winchesters, those words would have been nothing more than a failed joke, a bad case of denial. But not for the Winchesters; not for Sam and Dean. Dean meant exactly what he had said and Sam knew it.

The broken amphora was almost returned to its previous fragmented status, Sam's fingers slipping and assaulting the frail, badly glued clay. "Come again?"

:o:

Dean had been mulling over the matter ever since they had returned with the stolen amphora. That last look he had exchanged with the Sandman had told him everything he needed to know about that particular monster.

Morpheus, Greek god of sleep and dreams, once revered and even worshiped, knew how to hold a grudge. And they had stolen its chance to claim a victim the previous night. It would be back tonight and every single night after that until it got what it'd come for.

That was the easy part. The hard part was knowing that Sam had zero chance of succeeding in trapping a monster that he couldn't see and Dean had no other choice but to confess to his brother that, despite his injury, he would still be able to see Morpheus.

"It didn't stop because my eyes are currently not working," Dean said, trying to look at anything in the blackness of the room other than the shimmering colors of confusion building up around Sam's spot. But every moth is drawn to light and Dean's... _what-the-hell_ it was, was like the neediest moth of all times. When the shimmering solidified into something smoother and quieter, Dean knew Sam had understood.

"It's not just the Sandman that you can see, is it?" Sam asked, even though he already knew the answer. "You can see other things too. That's how you knew. You can see me."

Dean nodded, feeling the heat creeping up his neck, threatening to consume his cheeks. "Saw a couple of ghosts at the hospital and I'm pretty sure there is a werecat lady two houses down."

"How long?" Sam asked, sounding wounded even though Dean seemed willing to confess everything now.

Like it had happened before with the sword, Dean had once more tried to hide what was happening to him from his brother. He was all too aware that Sam felt those actions as a personal betrayal and saw it as a lack of trust on him from Dean's part. It wasn't true, but it was not a subject matter that Dean felt comfortable enough talking about to convince Sam otherwise.

It wasn't about Sam, not really. But when Dean himself didn't want to face the truth himself, how the hell was he going to share it with someone else, even someone as close to his heart as his own brother?

"Sam..."

"Yes, lets _not_ talk about this too," Sam offered sarcastically. "I'm done here. Let's go."

:o:

The reflective police tape, shinning back whenever a car passed by, was the only source of light that came from the empty house.

Sam clutched the glued amphora in his hands, the slightly warm clay under his fingertips his anchor in the storm of thoughts inside his head.

On one side, there were the harsh winds of doubt about what they'd came to the hunt and how they were about to plunge head-on; there were too many variables to this ritual that they didn't know about, too many things that could go wrong because they were not prepared enough. Was there any particular word from the several etched on the patterns outside the amphora that they were supposed to say out loud for Morpheus to be lured and/or trapped inside? And if they actually managed to get the thing inside the amphora, would a cork lid be enough to keep it there, or was there some sort of special cover that was lost when the amphora was initially broken? If Sam was to play bait for Sandman, did he actually have to sleep or would it suffice to lie in the bed?

On the other side, there was the plummeting pressure in the whole Dean _issue_ atmospheric shitstorm. When he had first found out about the tattoo that Dean had gotten in Purgatory Sam had made no effort to hide the fact that he found the benefits it brought kind of awesome. Who wouldn't want a weapon that is always there and upon which you can always rely?

When it became clear that Dean could see Morpheus when no one was supposed to, Sam had been more intrigued than frightened with the idea. But now, all of a sudden, it seemed like it wasn't just one type of being Dean could see, now he had this sort of _inner_ sight ability that allowed him to glimpse every being on the surface of the planet: alive, dead or in-between

Now that tattoo was not just a cool tool that could be used for one purpose, now, it seemed, it was something that was taking control of his brother and changing everything about him.

Sam feared that, when it was over, he would not recognize Dean as his brother anymore.

Dean's confession had not only surprised him but also made Sam wonder what would come next, or worse yet, what other changes had Dean already noticed but neglected to tell him about.

The trek to Tobias Jones' house wasn't a long one. Other than a quick detour to gather some supplies from the Impala, it was mostly walking across the street. If Dean, with his hand on Sam' shoulder, felt as awkward as Sam did, he wasn't showing it. The job always came, Sam needed to remind himself.

"Lets do this," Dean blurted out, like he had received some kind of secret 'go!' signal. For all Sam knew, that was exactly what had happened.

Conspicuous as Sam felt, him with his backpack and crutches and Dean with his bandaged eyes, both walking up to a house sealed by the police, no one gave either of them a second look.

Inside everything was pitch black until Sam broke a couple of light sticks and tossed them on the ground. The ghostly yellow light cast long shadows into the ruins of the house; it wasn't much of an improvement but it was enough to keep Sam's hands free to maneuver the crutches instead of holding a flashlight.

"Upstairs?" Dean broke the silence first. "Can you see a way up?"

Sam nodded before remembering his brother's handicap. "Yeah," he answered looking at the large chunk of missing steps. "There's a portable, metal staircase in the exact same place as the original stairs were. Guess the cops set it up to access the second floor."

"Nice of them…" Dean grumbled and turned toward his brother. "Well, at least it's not a ladder, eh Sammy?"

Dean was trying so hard to prove to him that everything was just the same as before that Sam couldn't help but respond to his effort.

"No shit," Sam huffed his agreement; still, even the staircase would prove to be a challenge. Using crutches on level ground was hard enough but hobbling up a set of stairs while dragging his cumbersome casted leg? This was going to suck. "This way," he called out, unsure how much help he should offer Dean.

Dean, however, was doing fine on his own. He seemed to remember exactly where the set of stairs had originally been and, feeling his way around, quickly grasped the handrail of the portable stairs.

By the time Sam reached the top of the stairs, short breathed and covered in sweat, he kind of envied Dean's currently two working legs.

The main bedroom looked pretty much as they had left it, except it was now decorated with yellow police tape and pink print-dust on most of the surfaces.

"Show time!" Dean said with fake enthusiasm.

Sam felt stiff and wrong, lying on a stranger's bed. Deep inside, he was pretty sure this whole thing was not going to work.

Dean was sitting on a couch right in front of the bed, his silhouette mingling with the darkness like he belonged there. Sitting beside him was the amphora, already filled with saltwater and at Dean's feet, two more buckets filled with the stuff. They were as prepared as they could ever be.

But nothing was happening.

"Want me to tell you a story or something?" Dean asked, shifting in his chair for the hundredth time in the last two minutes.

"Fuck you," Sam mumbled against the pillow. The damn thing had to be stuffed with actual feathers because it was making his nose itch like crazy. "You come here and sleep on command."

On command.

The missing piece suddenly clicked for Sam at the same time it must've clicked for Dean because there was a slap sound in the otherwise quiet room as Dean smacked his palm against his head.

"The damn sleeping pills," Dean voiced for the both of them. "That's why Morpheus goes after some but leaves the others alone. He only kills the ones on sleep medication!"

"I thought it was the Morpheus' job to _put_ people to sleep," Sam pointed out, "but I guess somewhere along the way he forgot and took the concept to a whole new level."

"Funny," Dean offered dryly as he leaned back on the couch, his whole body a monument to deep frustration. "Well, there goes our _only_ plan down the drain."

Sam sat up on the bed, wincing when the gesture pulled at his broken leg. "Why?"

One eyebrow rose above the white bandage. "Shall I point out the obvious matter of drugging you being bad for hunting or skip straight ahead for the fact that the only sleeping pills that either of us possesses are currently in my duffel, back at the motel, and there is no chance in hell I'm letting you take one of those?"

Instead of searching for a valid argument against Dean's case, Sam just leaned over and opened the top drawer on the nightstand. If they were right about the reason for Morpheus picking its victims, there should be a bottle— "Ah!" Sam let out, shaking the orange bottle in his hand. Four white pills rattled inside, like a pissed off snake.

Dean crossed his arms in front of his chest. "This is a bad idea, Sam."

"It's a sleeping pill, Dean, not an anesthetic," Sam said, squinting to read the label in the dim lit room. "The second that thing shows up, you can wake me up and we'll deal with it together."

Sam could almost see the cogs turning furiously inside Dean's head, weighing the pros of taking such a risk or missing their opportunity altogether.

"There's a reason why I don't take them when we're hunting, Sam" Dean warned him. "And it's not because I'm operating heavy machinery."

All of their current options involved losing track of Morpheus forever or getting someone else killed. "We really don't have another choice here," Sam pointed out.

Dean's silence was Sam's cue to grab one of the pills from the bottle and dry swallow it. The sooner they were done with this, the faster he could go back to trying to understand what Dean was becoming and how much should he be worrying.

:o:

There was a crack of static in the room followed by an intense feeling of skin threatening to crawl away from his bones and Dean knew for a certainty that Morpheus had finally made his appearance. "Sam."

Slithering through the corner where two walls meet, Morpheus moved like quicksilver. Its silvery colors shimmered and glinted, making it hard to stare at for too long.

Dean looked away, his focus on his brother. "Sam, come on, wake up!" When only a faint grunt answered him, Dean opened his mouth to call louder.

Morpheus picked that exact moment to make its move. A silvery ball shot from the main mass and hit Dean in the face. Suddenly, his mouth was full of sand and he couldn't make a sound. It was their last confrontation all over again and Dean already knew how that one had ended.

He got up, fumbling in the dark, hacking and wheezing. He tripped and staggered until one boot collided with a bucket of saltwater, upending the container and spilling its contents. The water had the desired effect; Morpheus hissed and backed away, giving Dean enough time to reach the bed.

Keeping an eye –so to speak- on the Sandman, Dean fumbled around, shifting sheets until he grabbed muscle. "Wake the fuck up!" he hollered, voice raw like it'd been scrubbed in saw paper, hands shaking Sam's shoulder as hard as he could. The familiar tingling in his arm came and went without the sword making an appearance. It was useless against this monster anyway and Dean needed both his hands free.

"Five 'moe minuss'," Sam mumbled.

Dean cursed, scurrying back for the second bucket of salted water. He got on all fours on the carpeted floor, fingers groping the fibers until he came across a wet patch. The remaining bucket, still full, was standing right next to the empty one.

He wasted no time. On the edge of his perception, like a passing shadow, Dean could see another of those damn balls of sand heading his way. Ignoring it, he looked for the warm colors of Sam presence before dumping the entire contents of the bucket on his brother.

Sam came awake with a gasp at the same time as twin balls of sand hit Dean in the gut, sending him flying against the something solid and unforgiving, a wardrobe, judging from the size and sound it made when Dean crushed against it.

Blood trickled down Dean's forehead and for a moment darkness became blinding white. Somewhere in the room, he could hear his name being called out.

"Dean! Dean, is it still here?"

Dean shook his head, the bandage around his eyes coming loose at the edges. He looked ahead and smiled, balling his hands. Morpheus looked pissed, a mini-tornado of fury because his intended victim, Sam, was utterly covered in the one thing that it couldn't touch. Saltwater.

And now, for the big finale...

"Get out of the bed," Dean urged Sam even as he advanced on the mass of rapidly moving sand. It was time for them to switch roles.

"Careful," Sam warned. Even though he couldn't see the Greek god, the strong wind and the amount of flying sand inside the bedroom made for enough challenge.

Dean nodded, even though 'careful' was something that was pointless at their current junction. His only job was to stop the damn thing from leaving the room and herd it towards the bed.

As Sam was no longer viable as victim, Dean figured that the only way to bring the metaphorical horse to the water was to present it with a really nice carrot. "Come and get me, you piece of shit!"

The second Dean's boot hit the mattress, Morpheus was on him and Dean was drowning in silver light, bright enough to hurt his brain. "NOW, SAM!"

There was a ripping sound, a second of sand turning into mud and the absolute certainty that his lungs would never taste oxygen again. The silver light shimmered and exploded in a million colors and Dean screamed soundlessly, unable to push air past his throat.

And then it was over.

There was a hand over his face, gently urging him to breath. Dean did just that, just to get the voice to quiet down. His head was killing him and he really could do with some silence.

The hand moved then, fingers curling around his eyes. "Don't open them," Sam whispered. "The bandage fell off, I need to find something to replace it."

Dean grabbed Sam's wrist before he could get out of range. "Is he gone?" He asked. "Did it work?"

There was a pause, long enough to send Dean's heart racing. There was no B plan, it was either get it right on the first shot or—

"Yeah, Dean, we got him," Sam said, and Dean could practically hear the smile in his voice. "Morpheus turned into a pile of goo. We just need to find a spoon and scoop it out of the sheets and into the amphora."

:o:

The plan had been nuts, granted, but Sam could see somewhat of a stroke of genius in it… even if they'd had to sacrifice their best sleeping bags.

The idea had been simple enough: grab a couple of waterproof sleeping bags, turn them inside out, fill them with salt water and lay the trap over the bed, under the sheets. Sam would play the cheese and they just had to hope that he was enticing enough that their rat wouldn't notice the giant trap.

Of course, Sam falling asleep and failing to wake up the second Dean called him had not been part of the plan. To be honest, Sam had been sure that the pill wouldn't even work: either it would have no influence over whether the Sandman came or not or –and- it would have no effect on Sam and the first point would be moot.

The effectiveness of the pill had taken him completely by surprise.

In the end, however, and against all odds, they had managed to get Morpheus over the bed in time to rip the sleeping bags open and drown it in salt water.

As soon as it had come in contact with the water, the Greek god stopped being invisible and what Sam saw truly scared him. From the way the muddy sand wrapped itself around Dean, like a revolving grave, he had been sure that Dean was going to be Morpheus' final victim.

Finally the saltwater won and the monster stopped wiggling and trying to bury Dean under its weight. It gave one final inhuman screech before settling on a condensed puddle in the middle of the bed. In a gross way, it kind of looked like someone had soil itself.

Sam's eyes, however, were focused on the human figure lying next to the puddle of goo.

Dean's bandage had come loose in the middle of the chaos and Sam could see that his eyes were closed. The skin around them was red raw even over the dark bags underneath and the lids looked puffy and filled with liquid. He doubted that Dean could open his eyes even if he tried, but Sam wasn't about to take any chances. The second he put his hands over Dean's eyes, his brother stirred awake.

After reassuring Dean that Morpheus was temporarily disabled, Sam looked around, desperate to find something to replace those bandages. The sheets were disgustingly filthy, so Sam wobbled unsteadily to the dresser and threw opened the first drawer. "Socks," he muttered. "Perfect."

He just grabbed one random pair and knotted one to the end of the other.

"Did you just say 'socks'?" Dean asked, slightly backing away from Sam as he returned to the bed.

"Orange socks, if you must know," Sam goaded him, tying the plain white socks around Dean's eyes. "With little red hearts."

Even covered up, Dean's glare was a powerful and scary thing. And very, very amusing for Sam.

:o:

The knock on the door was so unexpected that Sam's first reaction was to grab a gun and take cover behind the bed. He and Dean had moved motels yet again, just in case someone had seen them leave the Jones' house.

Neither could really drive, or else he was sure Dean would've insisted they'd skipped town altogether.

Bottom line was, no one was supposed to know that they were there.

With one last look around, making sure that nothing too suspicious was in view and that Dean was still sound asleep, Sam opened the door.

The dark skinned woman standing outside was a stranger, and yet she looked familiar somehow. "Can I help you?" Sam asked, trying to place her.

"Oui... is Dean around?" she asked with a smile that said she knew perfectly well that he was.

And then it hit Sam just from where he knew her: it was the same woman Dean had snuck out to see. The realization must have been too explicit in his face, because the woman' smile deepened.

"Hi, Sam," she said, extending her hand. "I am Madame Lapin, Blanche Lapin. I offer my services as a Voodoo priestess to those who seek me out. Your brother has been... consulting with me."

Sam's eyebrow rose. His high school French was kind of rusty, but this one he knew very well because he'd had a teacher who had insisted that the whole class read 'Alice in Wonderland' in French. "White Rabbit... so, Dean has been following you into some deep holes, has he?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, Sam realized how bad they actually sounded. The urge to apologize for his crudeness was almost as strong as the feeling of wrongness at her presence there. Had Dean picked up a stalker on top of everything else?

The woman, however, didn't seemed to take offense over his words. Instead, she smiled and grabbed Sam's arm, pulling him outside. "Let's leave him to rest while you ask your question, shall we?"

Sam was too dumbstruck to fight back. He took one look back, making sure that Dean was safe, tucked his gun into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back and, snatching his crutches from beside the door, closed it as he left. The curtains had been pulled close to avoid prying eyes, so how could she have possibly known that Dean was inside, resting?

This woman knew far too much to be just one of Dean's one-night stands. Or to be just a woman, for that matter. And what the hell did she mean by '_his question_'? Sam didn't have any questions to ask, certainly not to a complete stranger. All of his questions, at the moment, were for Dean and Dean alone.

"My mother had a certain sense of humor when naming me, I'll give her that," she started, ignoring Sam's suspicious face. "Can't say that it didn't come in handy in my line of work."

Sam couldn't care less for her family history. "Who are you?"

She stopped, fixing deep, eerily bright green eyes on him. "That is not the question you want to ask, Sam."

There was a world of unsaid things inside her eyes, a universe that Sam had spent his whole life fighting, a universe that he had almost called home for a dark period in his existence. Whoever she was, Madame Lapin was not human.

Dean had come to her, willingly. In fact, Sam was pretty sure that the only reason why they had taken a case in New Orleans was so that Dean could visit this Voodoo priestess.

From the amount of chumminess between this woman and Dean, Sam could almost think that they were old time acquaintances but that clashed heavily with the fact that Dean had kept her a secret from Sam. And if her relationship with Dean was a secret, it stood to reason that the motive that had led him to seek her was just as secretive.

Lapin's eyes were studying his face, a smile occasionally gracing her lips as if she was riding the same train of thoughts as Sam; it was unnerving.

"I'm still waiting for your question, mon chéri" she urged him, glancing briefly at her watch. "As my Alice counterpart would say, I'm getting late for an important date."

Sam gripped the rubber handles of his crutches harder. He should just turn his back on that woman and go back to the motel room. And yet, she was standing right there, offering to shed light over a matter that he hadn't dared to put to words until her arrival.

He knew exactly what the question was. "All those changes," Sam started, not feeling the need to explain which changes or to whom they were happening. "Where does it end? What is my brother becoming?"

Her smile reminded him of a chemistry teacher Sam had in high school. Whenever a student made even the slightest leap ahead in her teachings, she would offer that smile. Like a proud mother staring at her son.

She stepped closer to Sam. "A monster," she said, staring into his eyes. "A hunter," she whispered into his right ear. "A protector," she whispered into the left. "A brother," she said, her lips touching his like the lightest of feathers.

The moan that followed had nothing to do with pleasure. Her whole body shuddered before she collapsed against Sam.

Unbalanced by the unexpected added weight, Sam stumbled to the ground with her. The reason for her fall became painfully obvious when Sam spotted the arrow sticking from between her shoulder blades. "What the hel—"

There was no blood on the wound and as Sam pulled it out, he could see the blackened blood that covered the tip. He sniffed it. Dead man's blood.

"Are you okay, son?"

Two men, one carrying a machete and the other the crossbow that had clearly shot Lapin, knelt before him. Hunters, just like him.

"She didn't bite you, did she?" one of them asked, unceremoniously turning Sam's head sideways to have a look at his neck.

Sam blinked, taken off guard by the intrusion. They were treating him like any other victim, which meant that they had no clue who or what he was.

"I know what you're thinking, son," the one with the machete started, his sympathetic voice grating in Sam's ears. "You're confused and scared, but you can rest assure that this monster here will not be hurting anyone else... ever."

Madame Lapin was a vampire. And those hunters were going to kill her.

Both realizations weren't as surprising or striking as the possibility that she had been perfectly aware that they had been hunting her and that events would unfold exactly as they did. The watch. This was what she had been waiting for.

Sam wished she had shared that apparent knowledge of the future with him and told him what he was supposed to do now.

He could just walk away; let them keep on assuming that he was just one more civilian, grateful that they had saved him from becoming a vampire-snack. He could even throw in a small nervous break down at being introduced to the supernatural in such a violent way. God knew he'd witnessed plenty to be able to rip one off in perfection.

Lapin would die if he chose that option. And that should be perfectly fine with him, really. Who was she, other than a vampire who had concealed her true nature? And her claim of having such deep knowledge of what was going on with Dean, even though Sam was pretty sure that his brother had only met her a few days before? The possibility of it being complete bullshit could not be ignored.

Sam could give her the benefit of the doubt and rescue her. But to do that, he would have to fight two humans, possibly hurt them, and all of that to save a vampire. A monster.

Lapin's final words came rushing back to Sam. At the time, they had made absolutely no sense to him, other than the gut wrenching feeling he'd had at hearing his brother labeled as a monster.

A monster, a hunter, a protector. A brother.

Sitting on the scalding asphalt, with a passed out vampire in his arms, Sam finally understood what she had been saying.

And he knew what he had to do.

"Something wrong, son?"

"Yeah..." Sam was really growing to hate the way that stranger kept calling him 'son'. "I can't let you do this," he said, quietly and with all the self-assurance of a man not sitting on the ground with a busted leg.

The two hunters seemed at lost for words. Their expressions kept ping-pong-ing from being sure that he was kidding to taking him deadly serious. "Look, kid... I know she looks like any other woman, and I know its kind of hard to accept that there are things out there that—"

Sam pulled the gun from the small of his back, aiming carefully at a spot in between the eyes of the hunter holding the loaded crossbow. "Let this one go, fellas," Sam warned, hoping that they were not stupid enough to test his resolve. "Go hunt something else."

The hunters exchanged a look between them and Sam knew that, to them, he looked like nothing else but a freaked-out young man trying to be a knight in shinning armor. They lunged for him.

A single bullet bit the asphalt in the space between Sam and the two hunters.

Sam blinked, confused, his finger frozen on the trigger. He hadn't fired so...

"Everything okay out there, Sammy?"

Sam bit his bottom lip, stopping himself from laughing out loud when he looked back and saw Dean, standing at the door of their room, long range riffle in his hands. He had nothing on but the pajama bottoms he'd fallen asleep in and the bandage around his eyes.

Sam stole a look at the hunters. They could clearly see the bandages and, from the size of the gap in their mouths, they didn't quite believe what they were seeing.

The one in the front took another step, clearly having decided that what ever had happened, it had been a lucky shot.

A second bullet flew, sharp as the first, this time close enough to touch the tip of the hunter's boot. "I wouldn't do that, if I were you," Dean warned, his tone so bone-shilling that Sam believed that, if he wanted to, his brother could make a lightning bolt fall down right on top of them, in that very second.

"W-What the fuck is going on in here?" the hunter gasped, slowly backing away and pulling his partner with him. Finally, they were getting a clue. "Who are you freaks?"

Sam knew the answer to that one. "The kind you don't wanna mess with," he offered with a predatory smile.

By the time Dean made his way to Sam, the two hunters were long gone. "They'll be back," Dean voiced, offering his brother a hand up.

"I know."

"Rabbits should be more weary of hunters, you know?"

Sam looked at his brother, confusion in his eyes until he realized that Dean's words weren't aimed at him. Lapin was coming around.

She gave a raspy laugh, accepting Dean's help to get to her feet. "I'd figure you would go for the rabbits and watches joke instead, mon chéri."

Dean smiled in return, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder. " You know me... never change, but always keep them guessing," he said with a squeeze, letting him know that the words were for him as well. "Now, what do you say we get out of here before our _friends_ come back?"

:o:

They left Lapin at her place. She had a few things to round up and then she too would be moving on from that place. She offered to lend them her assistant as a temporary driver and, to Sam's surprise, Dean took her up on it.

They had one final stop to make before leaving New Orleans.

:o:

Mrs. Figgs opened the door on the second ring. She had the same amber glow that Dean remembered from the last time.

Dean heard a gasp as soon as she took in the bandages. "Oh, dear! What happened to you?" the words were laced with honest concern, even though he was nothing but a stranger to her.

Dean ducked his head, embarrassed at the warm feeling that the old woman exuded so openly. "Nothing to worry about, Jo," he offered with a smile. His expression grew serious as Dean remembered what he was there to do. "I came to tell you that it's over."

Jo's reaction was quiet, but Dean could see the amber glow grow darker and turbulent. The guarded sniffle made him reach out and wipe the silent tears from her face.

"Is that it?" She asked. Dean knew she had spotted the amphora he'd placed at her doorstep.

"Yes."

She took a deep breath, gathering her strength. "What do I do with it?"

"Toss it in the ocean," Dean said. "Make sure that it stays there."

A pair of wrinkled hands grabbed both sides of Dean's face, pulling him down until soft lips caressed his cheek. "Thank you."

The end

* * *

**Author's Notes**: My deepest thank you to Jackfan2 for, once again, pulling the diamond out of the chunk of rock I gave her. My friend, you are the best! All remaining mistakes are _culpa mea_ ;)

To all of you who've read this story, I take a bow. It was a pleasure entertaining you!


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